New Parkinson's Disease Center at VA Hospital

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has taken a major step toward improving care and pursuing a cure for Parkinson's disease by creating six new centers specializing in research, education and clinical care and committing more than $30 million to support the centers over the next four years. The centers, named Parkinson's Disease Research, Education and Clinical Centers, will be established this year at VA medical centers in Houston, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., Richmond, Va., San Francisco and West Los Angeles.

Operating as a national consortium, each Parkinson's center will conduct research covering basic biomedicine, rehabilitation, health services delivery and clinical trials. In addition, each center will participate in a landmark clinical trial to assess the effectiveness of surgical implantation of deep brain stimulators in reducing the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

The research focus of the Houston center will be four-fold: surgical treatment of Parkinson's disease; epidemiology of Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders; physical rehabilitation in Parkinson's disease; and health services utilization of Parkinson's disease patients.

The center director will be Dr. Eugene D. Lai, a board-certified neurologist who has served as director of the Houston VA's Movement Disorder Clinic since 1993. Dr. Lai is also an associate professor of neurology at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Richard K. Simpson Jr. will be the center's associate clinical director. Dr. Simpson has served as chief of neurosurgery at the Houston VA since 1991 and also is an associate professor of neurosurgery at Baylor. A board-certified neurosurgeon, Dr. Simpson has performed more than 150 deep brain stimulator implants in patients with movement disorders.

"We are very pleased that the Houston VA Medical Center was selected to be one of the six sites for this endeavor," said Dr. Lai. "We will be providing state-of-the-art comprehensive care for veterans with Parkinson's disease and promoting new research. We are hopeful that we will find a cure for this disease."

Parkinson's disease is slowly progressive and caused by degeneration of cells in a region of the midbrain that produces the chemical and neurotransmitter dopamine. Symptoms are characterized by tremors, slowness of movement, stiffness of limbs and gait or balance problems. While treatments exist, there is no cure for this debilitating disease. Parkinson's disease is a serious health problem in the United States. The National Parkinson Foundation estimates that up to 1.5 million Americans have the disease, with approximately 50,000 new cases diagnosed each year. VA medical centers treat at least 20,000 Parkinson's disease patients each year.

Creation of the new centers represents the second substantial VA initiative regarding Parkinson's disease in two years. In 1999, the VA and the National Parkinson Foundation signed an agreement to establish the NPF-VA alliance to cure Parkinson's disease.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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