Consortium to study Parkinson’s disease

Tirupati: To assess the Parkinson’s disease in Rayalaseema region, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) has launched Rayalaseema Disease Burden Consortium (RDBC) to be funded from Sri Balaji Aarogya Varaprasadini Scheme.

Speaking to The Hans India on the sidelines of first ever live workshop and symposium on ‘Deep Brain Stimulation’ (DBS) being organised by the Department of Neurosciences of SVIMS, the Director-cum-Vice Chancellor Dr TS Ravikumar said RDBC will be housed at the ground floor of Centre for Advanced Research(CfAR) building of the institute.

“It is important to make disease burden estimate in Rayalaseema as it is very important to have local information to assess so as to how the people manage with the disease,” he maintained, adding all these issues are to be studied at a local level to make burden assessment.

“For this we are teaming up with Sri Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) as they have an institute called Achuta Menon Centre for Health Science Studies which was well known for disease estimation in the country.

We also work together with Yashodha Hospitals, Hyderabad and MS Ramaiah Medical College, Bengaluru to have an inter-state consortium to see the common and unique problems,” Dr Ravikumar explained. 

He added that it was important to go deep into the issues relating with the disease as Parkinson’s disease has been one of the top three major risk factors along with stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Number of Parkinson’s patients have gone up to 1.4 crore in 2015 from 75 lakh in 1990 globally and the death percentage with the disease has gone up by 36 per cent.

Also, neurological diseases last about 17 per cent of deaths globally. With these statistics, there is every need to assess the situation at local level to better address the disease. Director of SCTIMST Dr Asha Kishore has accepted the challenge to collaborate with this, said Dr Ravikumar.

“Similar research will also be done for cardiovascular, cancer, neurological and renal diseases and of course on Trauma centre. All these studies have carried out globally but we want to do it at local level as there is need to quantify as the disease burden will not only be the disease itself. There are other costs involved like direct and indirect medical costs; personal costs and social aspects.

Under health economics all these five dimensions are to be assessed,” he asserted.  As the experts from different areas were here, SVIMS has been trying to pool their wisdom and analyse their own patients for whom they can do better. The Director has also said that he will plead with the insurance companies because these are more expensive procedures.

Patients will be explained the health economics about surgical procedure which will have quality of life and medical treatment which they should continue for lifelong. There will be interactive sessions in the workshop followed by practical sessions to show how to do the procedures. For the first time, they are also doing the procedure to a real patient in operation theatre from where the live telecast will be provided in the auditorium on Saturday.

Dr Krishna Kumar and Dr Syam of SCTIMST, Dr Anand Balasubramaniam from Yashoda Hospitals, Dr Kiran Khanapure and Dr Manjunath from MS Ramaiah Medical College, Bengaluru were among those participated as faculty of the workshop. Head of Neurosurgery department Dr BCM Prasad and Head of Neurology department Dr B Vengamma were the organising chairpersons.