MSA Diagnosis and Treatment (Neurologist Study-Guide, Oct 2013)

“Continuum” is a journal published by the American Academy of Neurology.  Its subtitle is “Lifelong Learning in Neurology.”  It’s a study-guide for neurologists.  Every year or maybe every other year they have an issue devoted to movement disorders.  Within that issue, there’s always an article on three parkinsonian syndromes — PSP, MSA, and CBD.  This year’s article has two authors — Dr. Irene Litvan, who was the keynote speaker at our October 2012 atypical parkinsonism symposium, and Dr. David Williams, a rising star in the atypical parkinsonism community.  (Unfortunately for us, Dr. Williams lives in Australia.)

The study-guide is available at no charge online:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4234134/

Continuum (Minneap Minn). 2013 Oct; 19(5 Movement Disorders): 1189–1212.
Parkinsonian Syndromes
David R. Williams, MD, MBBS, PhD, FRACP and Irene Litvan, MD, FAAN

The MSA-related section of the study-guide has four parts:

#1 – an overview of how MSA is diagnosed.  This section may include too much medical lingo for many in our group.

#2 – a very short section on “natural history.”  This is easy-to-read.

#3 – treatment paradigm.  I suggest you concentrate on this section.  Though it has quite a bit of medical jargon, I think it’s understandable.  It refers to a “multidisciplinary team approach.”

#4 – a case report of someone with MSA-P.  A video is available of someone with rigidity.

Robin