Michael Okun

Tyler’s Hope for a dystonia cure will be holding its annual golf tournament in Gainesville, FL to raise awareness and also research dollars for dystonia. For more details:  http://www.tylershope.org/  …

Chris Hass, Ph.D. and Mark Tillman, PhD., from the College of Heath and Human Performance at UF, are playing host to the American Society of Biomechanics annual meeting this week on the UF campus.  The meeting will be held at the UF Hilton across the street from the Center…

This article is  a recent review on a potential new research approach for developing a new therapy for Parkinson’s disease.  The abstract from pubmed is provided below: Neurotox Res. 2012 Aug 7. [Epub ahead of print] Modulating Microglia Activity with PPAR-γ Agonists: A Promising Therapy for Parkinson’s Disease?…

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…

The University of Florida Center for Movement Disorders & Neurorestoration is a proud participant in this program. It is exciting to see NPF reach this milestone. NPF’s Landmark Quality Improvement Initiative Enrolls 5,000 Parkinson’s Patients New Findings Presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 64th Annual Meeting…

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…