movement disorders colorado

MONTH IN REVIEW | January 2024

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We’re looking forward to lots of exciting things in 2024!

Happy New Year! We’re excited to share another year with you through our monthly e-newsletters! We hope that you had a lovely holiday season and a happy start ot 2024.

Congratulations!

We would like to say congratulations to Dr. Alexander Baumgartner who was offered and accepter the NeuroNEXT Fellowship Research Grant. He received a competitive one-year grant from the University of Colorado Rocky Mountain NeuroNEXT for his pilot study. You can read more about Dr. Baumgartner’s research interests here.

Dr. Isabelle Buard, Dr. Matthew Woodward, Dr. Jeanne Feuerstein, and Ying Liu presented posters at the 2023 Parkinson’s Study Group in December 2023.

Welcome, Dr. Aslam!

The Movement Disorders Faculty and staff are excited to welcome Sana Aslam, DO.

She is a board-certified neurologist who specializes in Movement Disorders at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She completed her undergraduate education at Wellesley College and Medical School at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. Following medical school, she completed her Neurology training and a Movement Disorders and Deep Brain Stimulation Fellowship at the Barrow Neurological Institute.

Read more about Dr. Aslam on our Meet the Team! page.

Upcoming Events

Parkinson’s Foundation Revolution Ride

Saturday, February 24, 2024, 12:30 PM
Parkinson’s Foundation
CycleBar Southwest Plaza
Come see us that the Parkinson’s Foundation fundraiser. We’ll be cheering on riders and giving out some goodies!
Learn more here.

From Dependent to Independent: Treatment Options for Essential Tremor

This series of talks will resume again in March. Please stay tuned for details.

In the News

Here are a few noteworthy articles that were published recently. Some of our faculty have contributed to the articles below. We encourage you to check them out!

Research

The MDC Faculty regularly publish articles in peer-reviewed journals. Some of these may not be available to read without a subscription. But, these listings will let you know what the faculty have been working on lately!

  • Cristini J, Potvin-Desrochers A, Seo F, Dagher A, Postuma RB, Rosa-Neto P, Carrier J, Amara AW, Steib S, Paquette C, Roig M. The Effect of Different Types of Exercise on Sleep Quality and Architecture in Parkinson Disease: A Single-Blinded Randomized Clinical Trial Protocol. Phys Ther. 2024 Jan 1;104(1):pzad073. doi: 10.1093/ptj/pzad073. PMID: 37354450; PMCID: PMC10776310.

Have you considered participating in clinical research?

Did you know…

  • all of the current therapies we have came from clinical trials?
  • people in clinical trials tend to have better clinical outcomes? (This could be because they are more closely observed by a expert clinician, the placebo effect, or because it inspires hope.)
  • the Movement Disorders Center has interventional and observational trials? This means we have studies that offer therapies for movement disorders and we have studies where clinicians monitor the progress of diseases with no therapy offered.

If you are interested in learning more, reach out to our research recruitment team at NeuroResearch@cuanschutz.edu or 303-724-4644.

Current Research
Join Database
Research Catalog

2023 World Parkinson Disease Day

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April 11 is World Parkinson Disease Day. The faculty and staff at the University of Colorado are proud to work with the Parkinson Community. While patient care is a large part of our care for the Parkinson’s community, there is a lot more they do outside of the clinic.

The Anschutz Medical Campus is a training facility for upcoming medical providers. Our faculty participates in the education of young medical students and residents. Additionally, we have a movement disorders fellowship program to train the next generation of movement disorders neurologists. In addition to becoming part of our own faculty, these trainees have gone on to serve movement disorders communities in underserved areas and continue clinical research in their own practices. You can learn more about our program and its importance by visitng our Fund-a-Fellow page.

Our faculty are also leading research to find new therapies or better understand Parkinson disease. This research can include trials of potential new medications or devices. It also includes research projects initiated by our own faculty that help patients and care partners. If you are interested in learning more about our research, we have a research catalog and a research website for you to view. If you are interested in participating in clinical research, contact our research recruitment team. Many resources are available in English and Spanish.
e-mail: NeuroResearch@cuanschutz.edu
phone: 303-724-4644
webform

In 2022, our faculty provided 64 formal talks to patients, care partners, medical providers, and medical learners. These talks were regional, national, and international. Our faculty finds so much value in providing access to updated information to the Parkinson’s community to help them take control of their health. If you are interested in having someone speak to your group, please reach out to movement@ucdenver.edu.

In addition, we will host our 10th Annual Parkinson Disease Symposium on October 28, 2023. Follow our Facebook page for updated details. You can look for an event page on our website soon. We look forward to an informational and exciting day with many special extras this year.

The University of Colorado Movement Disorders Center looks forward to continuing these missions in 2023 and beyond. We look forward to connecting with you.

Transitions

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The Movement Disorders Center is growing again! A handful of providers have moved on from our center for various personal reasons, including retirement and spouses being transferred to new positions. But we are excited to welcome new faculty to our group.

The faculty and staff at the center continue to be dedicated to improving the lives of people with movement disorders.

We announced in our newsletter that Dr. Alex Baumgartner and Dr. Michael Korsmo will be graduating from our fellowship program and will be joining us as faculty in August. Both bring niched areas of expertise that will help round out our center.

Dr. Baumgartner will be joining Dr. Kern as part of our advanced therapies and deep brain stimulation (DBS) team in the operating room. In the past few years, the number of DBS surgeries performed yearly has nearly doubled. The team has recently added a new neurosurgeon and more programmers as well. Dr. Baumgartner will see patients in the clinic at the Anschutz Medical Campus and in Lone Tree.

Dr. Korsmo will be expanding our reach to underserved communities. In addition, he will be seeing patients at our main clinic on the Anschutz Medical Campus and at our Boulder clinic.

Dr. Vaughan is expanding her neuro-palliative clinic. Her clinic will now be found at the Anschutz Medical Campus. By moving her clinic, Dr. Vaughan and her patients will have access to more services and resources. Her focus will now be neuro-palliative care; the main difference is that she will not be the primary movement disorders specialist for patients. She will still serve the movement disorders community through neuro-palliative care during all stages of diseases. She will still be available to all patients for neuro-palliative care via telehealth.

For more information about neuro-palliative care, you can read our Fall 2021 newsletter.

Board Certification

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Congratulations to our two first-year fellows, Alex Baumgartner, MD and Michael Korsmo, MD, for passing their neurology board examinations through the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology!

When we select fellows for our training program, they must be eligible to take these board examinations. This means they must meet all of the minimum requirements to take the exam by the start of their fellowship training. Fellows typically take the test towards the end of their first semester which is the earliest the test is offered.

Board certifications are important because they promote and assess the competence of physicians when beginning and throughout their careers. Board-certified physicians must provide proof that they are continuing their education through Continuing Medical Education credits and are recertified at set intervals throughout their career.

While board certifications are not required to practice medicine, they are an extra step many physicians choose to take. The certifications demonstrate the physicians are keeping up with the most recent advancements in their specialties and their desire to provide high-quality care to their patients. Board certifications are specific to each specialty and therefore maintain more specific standards to maintain certifcation.

All of the movement disorders specialists at the University of Colorado Movement Disorders Center are board-certified in neurology.

Say congratulations to our fellows if you see them in clinic!