Michael Okun

Dr. Catherine Price in the Department of Psychology at the University of Florida Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration was awarded a large NIH R01 this week to study post-operative cognitive dysfunction. A summary of the Research is Below: Older adults are at increased risk for experiencing acute and long-term…

A video of our talk on deep brain stimulation from the 2012 TEDxUF event was posted as a “Talk of the Day” on TEDx’s Google Plus, Twitter & Facebook this past week. We were excited to tell these stories and discuss deep brain stimulation in this kind of venue.

Time to Consider GPi DBS for Parkinson’s Disease: A Shift in the Practice of Patient Selection for DBS Michael S. Okun, M.D. Read Dr. Okun’s What’s Hot in Parkinson’s disease blog each month at www.parkinson.org A huge question facing Parkinson’s disease patients and clinicians has been, what is the best…

This was an interesting study by Dr. Wang in Dennis Steindler’s laboratory at the UF McKnight Brain Institute. This group was able to harvest stem-like cells from post-mortem brains (after-death brains donated by Parkinson’s disease patients), and also stem-like cells from discarded DBS leads. They were also able to place…

Are your tremors making it difficult to control the computer mouse?  Hand, arm or trunk tremors can interfere with fine motor precision.  It can become difficult to position the pointer on the icon in which you are trying to click.  Most computers will allow you to slow the speed of the mouse, therefore…

Should I be worried about an increased risk for osteoporosis and osteopenia with Parkinson’s Disease? There are now over a dozen published studies in the Parkinson’s disease literature and all point to an increased risk of osteopenia (thin bones), and to an increased risk of osteoporosis (brittle and fragile bones). A…

UF undergraduate student Sara Daniel published this paper on bone health in men with Parkinson’s disease. It is becoming clear than men with PD are at risk for brittle bones and should be getting bone scans and having regular discussions about their bone health. Below is the abstract from Sara’s…

This past month, the FDA approved DaTscan (Ioflupane I 123 injection, also known as phenyltropane), a radiopharmaceutical agent which is injected into a patient’s veins in a procedure referred to as SPECT imaging. DaTscan is an important addition because it is anticipated to be more widely available than other techniques…

Should I get a DaTscan or PET scan to confirm my diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease? You can find out more about NPF’s National Medical Director, Dr. Michael S. Okun, by also visiting the NPF Center of Excellence, University of Florida Center for Movement Disorders & Neurorestoration. This past month, the…

UF Med student Grant Hubsher recently published an article describing how a single observation in a patient with Parkinson’s disease taking amantadine for flu, led to the use of amantadine in Parkinson’s disease.  His paper appears in this month’s edition of Neurology.  The abstract is below: Neurology. 2012 Apr…