“Rebranding" Parkinson’s - by Dr Laurie Mischley

It’s time to reframe our thinking and take a new approach to Parkinson's disease! Despite 200+ years of effort, we do not have a system to predict, prevent, halt, or reverse Parkinson’s. Dr Mischley explores the notion that the problem lies in the lens through which we’ve been viewing it, the approaches we’ve been taking, and the assumptions we’ve been making.Provider bias: Dopamine has been a distraction and obstacle for disease-modification research. Subjective measures are better in early PD.Industry bias.Floor effects for crude measurement systems: Phase 3 studies keep failing because the tools we’ve been using to determine severity aren’t sensitive in newly-diagnosed people in disease-modification research studies. Study designs are flawed. People that enroll in studies probably not same as global population.Providers’ opinion that Parkinson’s is “irreversible and progressive” is outdated and contributes to the problem."What works” and “what providers know how to teach” and “what insurance will pay for” are often not aligned.The systems - and access to the systems - play a role in determining outcomes.We already have tools to make Parkinson’s preventable and reversible that we’re not using.This revised patient-centered, evidence-based pragmatic paradigm will include education, symptom tracking, goal-setting, counseling, laboratory tests to screen for nutritional deficiencies, counseling regarding diet, daily physical activity, social health, and strategies to encourage financial stability.About the speaker:-Dr. Laurie Mischley, ND PhD MPH studied naturopathic medicine (ND) at Bastyr University and epidemiology (MPH) and nutritional sciences (PhD) at the University of Washington and she maintains appointments at both Universities. Her work is focused on identifying the nutritional requirements unique to individuals with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and has published on coenzyme Q10, lithium, NAD+, and glutathione deficiency (www.lauriemischley.com). She is Principal Investigator of the Modifiable Variables in Parkinsonism (MVP) Study (https://mvp-study.com/), which is attempting to describe why some people with PD progress slower than others. She is working on ways to study, package and deliver evidence-based lifestyle modification as a therapeutic strategy. She founded:-The Parkinson Center for Pragmatic Research (https://parkinson-cpr.com/) The Canine scent-based PD screening tool, ParK-9 (https://park-9.com/), Developed a patient-reported outcome measure to assess PD severity (https://pd-symptoms.com/), built the Parkinson Symptom Tracking (PRO-PD) App, which is available free on iSO or AndroidIs instructor of the online series, Parkinson School (https://www.parkinson-school.com/) for which she has kindly given our No Silver Bullet community  free access for a limited time using the code NOSILVERBULLET