- As a world-class medical centre, the Montreal Neurological
Institute and Hospital (MNI) at McGill University is able to treat
patients with Parkinson's and make important discoveries about the
disease all under the same roof.
Dr. Edward Fon, a neurologist and researcher at the MNI, studies
Parkinson's disease (PD), a neurodegenerative disease that causes
muscle stiffness and tremor and prevents people from controlling
their movements in a normal manner. PD is estimated to affect about
100,000 Canadians.

By studying defects in the genes of patients with inherited forms of
PD, Dr. Fon and his team have learned about the cellular mechanisms
that are involved in the death of dopamine nerve cells, which is the
main characteristic of the disease. In a recent study that was
funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation and the Canadian Institutes
for Health Research and published in the prestigious journal Nature
Cell Biology, Dr. Fon and his colleagues made a new discovery about
parkin, a gene that is responsible for a common inherited form of
PD. "We have found that parkin plays a novel role in a signaling
pathway that controls nerve cell survival," explains Dr. Fon. "This
new function is completely different from the role parkin was
traditionally thought to play. Moreover, this pathway--called the
Akt signaling pathway--has recently been linked to other
neurodegenerative diseases in addition to PD. This new-found
interaction between Akt and parkin suggests that PD and other
neurodegenerative disorders may share certain key mechanisms of cell
death, which now gives us a whole new set of potential treatment
targets."

Along with his research, Dr. Fon is also a clinician at the Movement
Disorder Clinic of the MNI, which provides the best in health care
and services to people with PD across the country. In fact, it was
recently awarded a Clinical Assistance Grant from Parkinson Society
Canada for its excellence in clinical service and received an
outstanding score that put it amongst the top tier of eligible
candidates nationwide. The clinic takes a multidisciplinary approach
to patient care, and clinic director Dr. Anne-Louise Lafontaine
emphasizes that "newly diagnosed patients have the opportunity of
being evaluated by a neurologist, a clinical nurse specialist and
other health care professionals on the same clinic day. Follow-up
appointments with the team members are arranged as needed to follow
progress and offer advice on an ongoing basis." The clinic therefore
strives to offer continuity of care and facilitates this
through "one stop shopping."

Facts about Parkinson's

* Parkinson's disease is a chronic, progressive disorder of the
central nervous system that belongs to a group of conditions called
motor system disorders.

* Symptoms of Parkinson's, which often appear gradually yet with
increasing severity, may include tremors or trembling; difficulty
maintaining balance and gait; rigidity or stiffness of the limbs and
trunk; and general slowness of movement (also called bradykinesia).

* It is currently impossible to predict who will get Parkinson's
disease or to prevent it from occurring. In general, both men and
women are affected equally and symptoms first appear, on average,
when a patient is older than 50.


03 Aug 2006(Medical News Today)