News

Stephen Bittel, founder and chairman of Terranova, has donated $450,000 to the Miami-based Parkinson’s Foundation to fund the expansion of its Centers of Excellence network. Bittel also pledged to use his personal and professional networks to raise an additional $1 million for ongoing fellowship grants to encourage young scientists,…

Techniques that analyze speech and vocal patterns might be effective tools to diagnose Parkinson’s disease, and possibly at earlier stages than is now possible, according to a new study. There are no laboratory biomarkers that can detect Parkinson’s, and brain imaging scans do not allow for a definitive diagnosis. The clinical…

Sunovion Pharmaceuticals’ below-the-tongue version of a Parkinson’s therapy was able to ease patients’ movement difficulties after the standard therapy levodopa wore off, a Phase 3 clinical trial showed. Patients also tolerated the treatment — known as apomorphine sublingual film — well, the preliminary results showed. Sublingual means below the tongue, so the therapy’s full…

The U.S. National Institutes of Health is starting a pioneering, multi-pronged public-private partnership program to try to accelerate the development of Parkinson’s treatments. What makes it special is how big it is. The NIH-led collaboration includes government, pharmaceutical companies, life science companies and non-profit organizations. The partners are calling the collaboration AMP…

Goal-oriented cognitive rehabilitation was better than standard treatment or relaxation therapy at helping dementia patients achieve goals, a study reported. It also led to patients getting more satisfaction from attaining goals, researchers said. And it led to caregivers reporting less stress and a better quality of life. The study was based…

American researchers have identified an enzyme-based mechanism that regulates neural stem cells’ ability to generate nerve cells, a finding that could lead to new therapies for Parkinson’s and other brain disorders. Scientists at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute did the work. The institute has research facilities in San Diego…

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai found existing evidence does not support claims that wearable biosensors are improving outcomes for patients with various ills — from obesity to hypertension to lung or heart diseases — although hints of these devices’ potential were seen in some studies in Parkinson’s patients. A lack of long-term and…

Diet, supplements, and over-the-counter medications play a crucial role in mitigating the daily symptoms of Parkinson’s, which can range from low energy levels to constipation to anxiety and depression, according to a presentation hosted by The Parkinson Voice Project. Susan Imke, FNP, GNP-C, a certified gerontological nurse practitioner who focuses…

The winners of a crowd-sourced research challenge designed to improve the ability of remote sensors to monitor Parkinson’s disease (PD) used a mix of signal processing and deep neural networks to better predict disease and disease severity. Sage Bionetworks, in collaboration with the…

Voyager Therapeutics will soon initiate a global Phase 2/3 clinical trial program to evaluate its VY-AADC gene therapy for the treatment of advanced Parkinson’s disease. The trial follows approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of the company’s investigational new drug (IND) application…