Planes and an ailing brain…. A high ranking politician got off a longhaul plane flight and promptly had a seizure. Made me wonder what we know about this type of presentation. Certain types of illness – especially heart attacks and blood clots – have been linked to air travel aka economy class syndrome. But [...]

Dr Susanna Park from the Institute of Neurology, UK critically considers Stroke and the First Week The focus of the March issue of JNNP is stroke, highlighting a range of research assessing risk factors, prognosis, treatment and management. In this timely issue, Kauranen and colleagues1 present a study which emphasises the importance of cognitive function [...]

Omar and colleagues identified abnormalities in processing and identification of common flavors in patients with frontotemporal lobe syndromes.  This loss of flavor processing was associated with atrophy of the left entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus and temporal pole.  From a clinical perspective, these findings provide insights into abnormal eating behavior patterns in FTD and ultimately [...]

  It may seem strange, but asking patients with Parkinson’s disease to rate how much their symptoms have improved doesn’t seem to match up to clinical improvements, at least as assessed by using the conventional symptoms scores used by clinical researchers.   Doctors and researchers use different symptom scores to help measure the symptoms of [...]

   Medical publishing metrics and financial yields In “Chapters from My Autobiography” published in 1906, Mark Twain noted that “figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned [...]

Introduction     A web app has been developed that can test the eyesight of people with conditions that cause vision loss – particularly stroke.   Hemianopia is a condition that causes a loss of vision in either the right or left sides of both eyes. It is a common side effect of stroke. Less [...]

Dr Susanna Park from the Institute of Neurology, London has created a novel picture of 2012 It is the time of year when reflection on the year that was and anticipation to the year ahead starts to build. The countdown is on to 2013… However it’s hard to capture a year in a statistic, or [...]

Many of you will have seen Bill Murray’s star performance in the 1990’s comedy classic, Groundhog Day, the story of a man who is forced to re-live the same day over and over again. In clinical neurology, Groundhog Days can occur once in a while but we are particularly blessed in having a wide variety [...]

How often is one in the company of greatness? Perhaps you are quite impressive yourself, and to be in a like-minded assemblage is an everyday affair. However, even flinging self-deprecation aside, I would class myself as only ‘reasonably good’. So spending the gloaming hours on a Sydney winter’s eve with the eminent neurologist and author [...]