Parkinson’s Disease: Treatment Options and General Information

This event is hosted by Abbott, but Abbott has no control over the content of the presentation.

Please join our webinar with Dr. Drew Kern, Movement Disorders Specialist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

Subjects to be discussed:

  • What comes after diagnosis
  • Treatment options/resources
  • Surgical options
  • How CU Anschutz can help with your journey

RSVP:

Taylor.Humphries@abbott.com

Zoom Link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84142033436

Download the event flyer here.

Estate Planning for Families Affected by Parkinson’s Disease

Please join us for a virtual conversation around creating estate plans for families with Parkinson’s

 Julie Westbrock.png

Julie Westbrock, Vice President of Business Development, TrustPoint Wealth Management

Wednesday, February 8 from 2 pm – 3 pm EST

RSVP Required

As the Vice President of Business Development, Julie’s team works with individuals, families, organizations, and businesses that benefit from sophisticated wealth-related services. She leverages her years of experience in her solo practice to help clients with complex trust and estate needs including settlement preservation trusts, special needs trusts, and estate planning.

Julie earned her BS in Business Management and Marketing from Cornell University in New York and her Juris Doctor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul. Her career has focused around helping individuals with all aspects of estate planning.

Julie, her husband, and son live in the Minneapolis area. She enjoys her husband’s BBQ, her son’s rock band performances, and spending time at the family farm. She is active in the Minnesota/ Dakotas Chapter of the Parkinson’s Foundation, an organization dear to her heart. She is also involved with the Positive Coaching Alliance and the Rotary Club of Edina.

Julie will help participants understand the basics of setting up estate plans.

Cognitive Changes in Parkinson’s Disease

This lecture will discuss common cognitive complications of Parkinson’s disease, treatment for these changes, and current research on the topic. This talk will introduce concepts such as Parkinson’s disease dementia and Lewy body dementia. We will focus on identifying these symptoms and what medications and alternative therapies can be used to help. Dr. Heffernan will also discuss mental health complications of Parkinson’s disease and the best way to understand and treat those symptoms as well.

Dr. Heffernan received her bachelor’s degree in Biology at Bethel College in central Kansas. She went to medical school at the University of Kansas and completed her residency training at the University of Colorado, serving as chief resident in her fourth year. She is a board-certified neurologist who is completing subspeciality training in Movement Disorders at the University of Colorado. She has a special interest in the cognitive associations with Parkinson’s diseae.

This event is being hosted by the Parkinson Association of the Rockies.

From Dependent to Independent: Treatment Options for Essential Tremor & Parkinson’s Disease

Please join Dr. Drew Kern (Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Movement Disorders Neurologist) for a virtual event as he discusses the incisionless, outpatient treatment for patients diagnosed with Essential Tremor and Parkinson’s disease. Event attendees will learn how this innovative treatment can enhance and transform patients’ lives by improving hand tremor without invasive surgery.

Register now by visiting Resources.Insightec.com/Colorado.

See the event flyer here.

Insightec is hosting this event but does not provide or have influence over the content of the presentation.

Transitions

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.

MDC Receives Parkinson’s Foundation Award

The University of Colorado Movement Disorders Center received an award from the Parkinson’s Foundation for the Highest Team Participation for the Parkinson’s Foundation Palliative Care Education Course. The award was presented at this year’s COE Leadership Conference and was accepted by Ryan Khan, a chaplain who works closely with our Palliative Care team.

In 2020, the Parkinson’s Foundation launched an initiative to make palliative care a standard practice of care across all Centers of Excellence in the United States. The MDC received the award for being the Center of Excellence (COE) with the most team members who have completed the online Palliative Care Training.

The Movement Disorders Center is honored to receive this award in recognition to our dedication to patient care.

New Interdisciplinary Clinic Opening in Boulder + More Good News

We have a lot to celebrate this month!

Our interdisciplinary Boulder team completed the Parkinson’s Foundation Team Training. This course was designed by the Parkinson’s Foundation to increase knowledge of Parkinson’s disease. The course is also designed to encourage collaborative care. This was an intensive course that ran throughout the Spring. We look forward to enrolling more of our interdisciplinary team in the future.

Our Boulder team will begin hosting an Annual Parkinson’s Disease Interdisciplinary Clinic. This clinic is designed specifically for individuals with Parkinson’s disease. During this annual visit, patients receive a standardized set of evaluations by their movement disorders specialist, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Therapy. The goal is for people with Parkinson’s disease to go through this clinic yearly. This will assist in tracking the progression of Parkinson’s disease more accurately and integrate the perspectives of the interdisciplinary team when offering our recommendations for activity-based and pharmacological treatments. Our hope is that this input will help patients maintain their optimal function and quality of life. This clinic is also offered at our Anschutz Medical Campus.

Congratulations to Michelle Fullard, MD and Isabelle Buard, PhD for receiving the University of Colorado Department of Neurology’s Intradepartmental Grant. This award has been offered since early 2016 to assistant and associate professors. This grant is designed to give the junior faculty a jumpstart on new research years and allows for protected time to prepare a grant application, write a peer-reviewed journal article, develop collaborations and/or perform any other research task that may otherwise be challenging because of time.

Dr. Buard’s research is “Investigating cortical sleep patterns disruption after traumatic brain injury under the mentorship of Dr. Benzi Kluger and Dr. Jeff Hebert. Dr. Fullard will conduct Examining gender differences in therapy preferences and risk tolerance in Parkinson disease” under the mentorship of Dr. Maureen Leehey. Dr. Fullard recently completed an interview with Davis Phinney Foundation about “Removing Barriers to Deep Brain Stimulation for Women with Parkinson’s.” You can watch the full interview on YouTube on Davis Phinney Foundation’s channel.