>> Liana: Good morning, nice to see everyone.
>> Good morning.
>> Good morning, yay, we're very excited
to be here and we're very excited
that all of you agreed to spend the day,
here, talking with us and learning about Parkinson's disease
and learning about some of the newest research
that we've been working on to try
to find better treatments and better ways
of diagnosing this disease.
So, thank you all very much for coming.
We're very excited for today's presentation.
So, what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna very briefly run through
the Hopkins Movement Disorder Center
and also, take care of a few housekeeping things
along the way.
So, there's a few different things
for folks to know about.
So, first, who we are.
The Johns Hopkins Movement Disorder Center.
We provide comprehensive, compassionate
and timely treatment to our patients.
And we focus on both treating our patients
but also on research as you're gonna hear a lot about today.
And then also, we focus on teaching
about movement disorders.
So, we try to train the next generation
of physicians and nurses and physical therapists
and occupational therapists as well,
all about Parkinson's disease
and within the Movement Disorder Center,
we have a number of different areas of specialty,
including ataxia, dystonia, essential tremor
and, of course Parkinson's disease,
the reason we are all here today.
The Johns Hopkins Movement Disorder Center,
we are a Parkinson's Foundation Center of Excellence status
and this is a designation given
to Movement Disorder Centers where each center has
a rigorous clinical, research and professional education,
as well as, patient care criteria.
And really, a lot of the things
that we do for patients, we are able to do
because of the Parkinson's Foundation support.
So, this entire event here today is
through the Parkinson's Foundation
and also, through the Udall Center
which I'll be talking about in just a moment as well.
So, Centers of Excellence provide expert care
to more than 145,000 people with Parkinson's,
those are obviously not all at Hopkins.
And our goal, one of our goals is
to advance research and provide patient education programs
such as, today.
The Udall Centers are an NINDS designation
and they were, this was a program
in honor of Congressman Morris K. Udall,
who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1979
and so, Congress, in it's,
you know, infinite wisdom, began the Udall Centers
in 1997 and Hopkins has been a Udall Center,
more or less, since 1999.
The goal of each center
and every year there are
about eight to 10 centers nationwide
and every five years, we're up for renewal.
And the goal of each center is
to determine the fundamental causes of Parkinson's disease
and to improve the diagnosis and treatment
of individuals with PD.
The Hopkins Udall Center focuses
on improving our understanding
of how a few very key and important proteins
lead to Parkinson's disease.
So, you're gonna be hearing about
some of these proteins and some of this research
throughout the day today,
as well as about some of the things
that the Parkinson's Foundation is doing
and some of the things that we'll all doing
for our patient care.
Specifically, in terms of the research though,
we did our very best to set up our slides
and give our presentations in such a way
that they will be understandable
to folks who have not gone to medical school.
That's been, kind of, our goal.
If, at any time, we are saying things
that don't make sense
because you haven't gone to medical school,
please let us know.
So, if you have a question, I can almost guarantee,
at least, five or 10 other people
in the room have the same question.
So, I really want, our goal is to explain this
but we don't always know all the things
that you guys know.
So, please ask lots of questions, it's really important,
'cause we really want you to be able
to understand what we're doing
and the importance of what we're doing
and really, hopefully, leave the day
with a sense of hope for the future
and for all the things that we're learning about.
So, within this Center and within our treatment,
we also collaborate with Speech Language,
Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy,
Urology, GI, Ophthalmology,
because, as you guys know, Parkinson's disease affects
all sorts of different body systems.
So, we, oftentimes, collaborate
with these folks, both in terms of patient care
and in terms of research.
And then, within the Hopkins Movement Disorder Center,
we have a number of
Parkinsonism specific Sub-Specialty clinics.
So, Parkinsonism is a designation
that we give to folks who have a tremor,
a slowness of their movement, some rigidity or stiffness
and so, we have and most folks
with Parkinsonism have Parkinson's disease.
So, we have a number of Parkinsonism
Sub-Specialty clinics, including
our Neuromodulation and Advanced Therapies,
that are also known as the DBS Clinic.
We have the Atypical Parkinsonism Clinic
and then also the Botox Clinic.
So, one other final housekeeping matter,
we have a, there's some index cards on all of your tables.
If you have questions, feel free
to write them down on the index cards
with your contact information.
If we're not able to get to your question today,
we'll review the index cards afterwards
and do our best to reach out to you,
in order to follow up
on whatever questions you may have.
Hopefully, we'll have lots of time to questions today
but we'll do our best to stick on time as well.
As we wanna make sure
that everyone can get our of here before rush hour.
So, without further ado,
I'm gonna introduce Dr. Justin Martello.
Dr. Martello is the only Movement Disorder physician,
Movement Disorder trained physician in all of Delaware
and he's currently practicing
out of Christiana Care.
So, thank you very much, Dr. Martello.