The clinic is dedicated to caring and finding cures for patients who have different forms of parkinsonism and ataxia, including those known as “Parkinson’s plus” disorders. These diseases are inter-related through both their clinical presentation and underlying disease biology.
We group these diseases according to the specific proteins that misfold within the brain to cause them:
- synucleinopathies relate to the protein alpha-synuclein, including Parkinson’s disease, multiple system atrophy and dementia with Lewy bodies.
- tauopathies relate to the protein tau, including progressive supranuclear palsy.
- cerebellar ataxias relate to frataxin and ataxin proteins in the case of hereditary ataxias like Friedreich’s ataxia and spinocerebellar ataxias, or to the protein alpha-synuclein in the case of multiple system atrophy.
Additional resources for patients are available at the Multiple System Atrophy Coalition, National Ataxia Foundation, Cure PSP, Parkinson’s Disease Foundation and Michael J Fox Foundation websites, as well as the neurologic disease portal at the National Institute of Neurologic Disorders and Stroke.