The Parkinson’s Research Clinic runs here at the Centre for Brain Repair every Thursday, and is the gateway to many of our other research studies. We have recently been focusing on recruiting individuals who have just received a new diagnosis of Parkinson’s, and we have been delighted to welcome many new participants to our research programme. We are also continuing to follow-up individuals enrolled in our long-term cohort studies, including ‘PICNICS’, ‘ICICLE-PD’ and ‘Tracking Parkinson’s’ at these Thursday clinics. Visits generally last for around 2 hours, and involve a session with a neurologist and a session with a neuropsychologist. During a visit, we collect detailed information on symptoms and problems associated with Parkinson’s, and perform a range of clinical assessments as well as tests of memory and thinking. We invite participants to come back for follow-up every 18 months to 2 years. Through detailed assessments in large numbers of people over time, we are developing a much clearer picture of the clinical variability in the condition, and the factors that predict differences in progression rates over time. In addition to investigating clinical factors, we are also collecting blood samples to look at genetic, metabolic and immune factors which might be contributing to differences in rates of disease progression between individuals.

Individuals who have been assessed in the research clinic may be eligible to go on to be involved in a range of other research studies or clinical trials.

If you have any questions regarding the Parkinson’s Disease Research Clinic or appointments please contact Molly O’Reilly on 01223 767069

The Parkinson’s Research Clinic and all of our clinical research studies are supported by the National Institute of Health Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

 

 

Parkinson’s Disease Open Day 

In May 2022 we held our annual Parkinson’s Disease Day at John Van Geest Centre for Brain Repair. It was great to have a full house and see everyone enjoying the presentations.

Links to the presentations:

Dr Jonathan Holbrook –Natural Killer cells: A new cell of interest?

Sophie Skidmore – The fear of rejection: The immune response to stem cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease

Colleen Rollins – Sound and vision: an arts-based project exploring the lived experience of hallucinations

Ledia Alushi – Exercise in Parkinson’s

Catherine Horne – Investigating the role of the Immune system in Parkinson’s disease.