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Executive Page

News and letters from the EAN President and other EAN Board members

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    President’s Page: 200 years since James Parkinson’s first description of the disease named after him

    February 1, 2017
    It is unknown which of his many books James Parkinson (1755-1825) has considered the most important one. His 500 pages ‘Medical Admonitions’ for lay people, his ‘Chemical Pocket Book’ covering interesting facts on modern chemistry of the late 18th century, the ‘Hospital Pupil’ on the educational standards of physician education, his collection of minerals and fossils  ‘Organic Remains of a Former World’ or any other of his many contributions. History has clearly shown that his most important contribution was his 1817 ‘Essay on the Shaking Palsy’ which celebrates its 200th birthday this year.
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    President’s Page: On the value of European health care funding for neurological patients

    December 1, 2016
    European institutions are sometimes discredited and put into questions. This is particularly true in these times of populistic political movements which try to steer the wheel of European unification backwards. Reasons given by opponents are that ‘European efforts are considered too slow, too burocratic and too inflexible’. ‘There are too many cooks preparing the meal’. Sometimes we hear this also from scientists. The logical conclusion is to spend the money at home in their own countries. The latter view is sometimes even expressed by people who in principle share the European perspective. Populistic politicians go so far to even question the whole EU project. In this respect medical research community can make an argument and a big contribution to the understanding why the EU is important.
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    President’s Page: The many faces of National Neurological Societies in Europe

    November 4, 2016
    EAN pages strives to present one country every month to the readers of the EAN pages. We have seen presentations from Albania, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, and Ireland so far and I would draw your attention to these wonderful articles in our newsblog. This month we have Latvia and in December it will be Moldovia. The country where the EAN congresses take place (so far Germany and Denmark) are even presented in a series of articles covering special aspects of the development of local neurology. The top neurologists from these countries take their time to present important aspects of their country like Denmark did before the Copenhagen congress in 2016. In a series of seven articles they have presented the state of the art and research in their country concerning basic MS research, pain, dementia, clinical MS research, cerebral blood flow research, clinical neurophysiology and headache. The care structures for patients and how research is helping to develop new treatments and new innovations are outlined and one can learn from their success. Whenever I read their presentations it reminds me to the rich history of neurology in Europe. All the different countries were able to show their particular contribution to the field and the achievements they have reached to provide better patient care.
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    President’s Page: Treatment of neurodegenerative diseases: are we close to a breakthrough?

    October 1, 2016
    It is a dream of neurologists to cure degenerative diseases. The big brothers, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease have always been a huge burden of the population but are now, in the millennium of increasing population age becoming a scourge of humanity. While everybody is acknowledging this, both PD (1) and AD (2) communities of clinician researchers and basic researchers are preparing to attack the problem fundamentally frequently unnoticed by the general neurology community.
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    Treatment of neurodegenerative diseases: are we close to a breakthrough?

    October 1, 2016
    It is a dream of neurologists to cure degenerative diseases. The big brothers, Alzheimers’ and Parkinsons’ disease have always been a huge burden of the population but are now, in the millennium of increasing population age becoming a scourge of humanity. While everybody is acknowledging this, both PD1 and AD2 communities of clinician researchers and basic researchers are preparing to attack the problem fundamentally frequently unnoticed by the general neurology community.
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    President’s Page: The second term of office of the EAN board

    July 1, 2016
    During the second EAN congress in Copenhagen, the current board of the EAN has been reappointed with a very strong majority and as the first president elect of the newly structured board, Franz Fazekas from Graz, Austria was elected. He will be the next president in two years from now. The board and myself thank the delegates for this confidence shown to us. We interpret this as a strong mandate to follow and expand the tracks that we have already started to follow. This is to briefly outline two of these avenues. Meanwhile, the major goals for our Society are outlined in the strategic plan.
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    President’s Page: The second Congress of the European Academy of Neurology in Copenhagen

    June 6, 2016
    The 2nd congress of the EAN took place May 28-31, 2016 at the Bella Conference Center in Copenhagen. We had 5500 attendees who took part in 40 Symposia, focused workshops and special sessions. Among the many highlights were the outstanding presentations by the awardees of the Romberg, Golgi and Brown-Séquard lectures during the presidents plenary and the last-minute session on the ‘epidemiology, clinical presentations and immunology of Zika-Virus induced neurological diseases’ (This session can be viewed on the members-only part of the EAN-website). More than 4500 participants attended the 40 educational events with many new innovations like case-based facilitated workshops, more hands-on courses and career-development sessions. More than 1500 abstracts were presented in 28 oral and 117 electronic poster sessions.
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    President’s Page: The new Consensus Statement on European Brain Research

    April 1, 2016
    On March 18th, 2016 the ‘Consensus statement on European Brain Research’ (Morris et al., 2016) has been launched in Brussels at the Brussel office of the European Brain Council. Several organisations related to brain science, including the European Academy of Neurology, participated. The European Brain Council is uniting the European organisations of physicians for Neurology, Psychiatry, Neurosurgery, the scientists for both molecular and systemic Neurosciences and the European patient organisations for neurological and psychiatric diseases (see below 1).
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    President’s Page: 2nd EAN Congress in Copenhagen – The newly created named lectures of the EAN

    March 23, 2016
    The European Academy of Neurology has introduced a new feature for our congresses and I would like to explain the ideas behind. Congress participants expect to be exposed to many features during the congress of the EAN. This includes cutting edge science, exiting news about the causes of neurological diseases and related translational research, new talents in the field reporting their latest research and modern teaching covering the many aspects of the neurologists practice. One other item was lacking so far: They also want to see the giants of our field who have done and are still doing innovative research and are known to be the best teachers.
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    The scientific panels of the European Academy of Neurology: reorganisation of the think tank

    February 1, 2016
    The purpose of EAN is to promote excellence in Neurology in Europe and among other topics the bylaws have detailed this ‘to increase the … standards of neurological services, to support neurological research and to be an organ speaking for neurology as the major medical specialty caring for patients with neurological disorders’. A very important structure of the Society to continuously fulfill this mission are the 31 scientific panels of EAN. These panels did exist already within the former Societies EFNS and ENS but they were organized differently. As they have received some reformation I would like to briefly outline their current function and why this reorganization was necessary.
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    President’s Page: Neurology under the conditions of a brutal war

    January 1, 2016
    The year 2016 is beginning in many places with wonderful progress for neurology. But we should not forget that many of our colleges are working under the hardest imaginable conditions. The war in the middle east taking currently place in Syria, Iraq and neighboring regions is the most brutal and unhuman war which this region has ever suffered. I am writing about Syria but the situation is similar in the neighboring countries. The United Nations estimated at the beginning of 2015 that 220,000 people had been killed in Syria, but other monitoring groups put the death toll much higher. The people living in this region are constantly exposed to violence from all sides, the educational system suffers vita minima and regular jobs are a fiction for most people. Besides all direct military actions people suffer from unexpected explosions or killings for no reasons when walking on the road. Children and women are subject to violence through many and mostly unthinkable ways. Particularly young men fear of getting arrested at military barriers for recruitment and getting killed after a few days in front lines. There is a strong movement to Turkey or Lebanon and meanwhile to Europe. While Syria had 22 Million inhabitants in 2011 before the war currently almost 10 Mio of them are refugees abroad or have moved from the rural areas to the safer cities. The economic situation is also catastrophic as the inflation is grossly affecting all parts of the Society. While 1 US $ equaled 60 Syrian pounds (SP) in the past it equals now 250SP. Black market economy is increasing the suffering in particular of the poorer population. Physicians working in government services earned 400-600$ in the past but are now just between 50-75$ due to inflation and therefore also their families suffer.
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    President’s Page: EAN-membership and membership benefits

    December 1, 2015
    The European Academy of Neurology was founded just 18 months ago and is becoming increasingly accepted as a hub for scientific knowledge and premier education (please see the EAN movie). This is reflected in the number of neurologists and trainees who join the EAN as members. To remind you: EAN has close to 25 000 associated members from 47 national European Member Societies, but accepts neurologists wanting to upgrade their membership as individual members.
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    President’s Page: The Burden of Neurological Diseases is still highly underestimated – improvement is in sight

    November 1, 2015
    Many political decisions within the health system are critical depending on the number of patients affected by a particular disease group and hence which discipline of medicine is responsible for the care of these patients. This applies for budgets for health care, number of beds for a particular disease group, overall budget for a discipline within a hospital, budgets for out- or inpatients care, but also percentage of research money which goes into particular fields of medical research. Also, the general public counts on these measures because mortality, morbidity and costs of disease are important to determine the importance of a disease group and usually, the higher the numbers the more important is the disease.
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