The P+A+MSA Clinic (for “Parkinson’s plus”-Ataxia-Multiple System Atrophy patients) is housed within the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and adjacent to Harvard Medical School.
This multidisciplinary clinic (physicians, advanced practice providers, physical therapists, social worker with a referral base to other physician specialists and allied health professionals) 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 ataxiaand spinocerebellar ataxias, or to the protein alpha-synuclein in the case of multiple system atrophy.
For complete information, including staffing, please see the P+A+MSA Clinic website. Referrals are made through the main Movement Disorders clinic (+1 617 732 7432), with attention to Ms Marie Etienne, the clinic coordinator. The co-directors of the clinic are Dr Vikram Khurana and Dr Barbara Changizi.
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.