Ataxia clinic plans to expand treatment offerings

By Sean Gorman 

After the VCU Parkinson’s and Movement Disorder Center’s ataxia clinic launched in early 2024, the patient roster grew quickly.

The clinic offers ataxia exams as well as the genetic testing that can confirm what specific form of the disorder a patient may have.

The PMDC now has 70 ataxia patients at the clinic, which is a very large number for a group of rare disorders, says Stephanie Bissonnette, D.O., a PMDC movement disorders neurologist who oversees the clinic along with PMDC genetic counselor Ginger Norris, M.G.C.

The PMDC clinic, which also sees patients with other movements disorders like Parkinson’s disease, dystonia and Huntington’s disease, helps ataxia patients navigate a vast and complicated array of testing options to find the ones that have the most promise in unlocking a firm diagnosis.

That makes the clinic a valuable resource for patients living with ataxia, which includes a wide range of often-undiagnosed disorders characterized by coordination problems, balance issues and other symptoms. Those symptoms can often be mistaken for having other causes, such as alcohol use, clumsiness or Parkinson’s disease, Bissonnette says.

“It’s really hard to say, ‘you very clearly have these specific symptoms, so you must have this type of ataxia,’” Bissonnette says. “Genetics is a big part of it because there are so many ways you can inherit ataxia. That also complicates how you get the testing. There’s not one test. There are many tests and many companies, and they all look at very different things.”

And finally having confirmation of which specific form of ataxia a patient has offers clarity for what they’re facing and guides their care, Bissonnette adds.

Since so many ataxias have no cure, treatment involves therapeutic interventions to preserve muscle movement and coordination, Bissonnette says. So the next phase of the

clinic is focusing on how to provide comprehensive care for patients from a range of medical providers.

Bissonnette says that by the summer of 2025, the clinic hopes to offer occupational, speech, and physical therapy as well as social worker services for ataxia patients at the PMDC’s Short Pump location.

“The goal is to keep people living the best quality of life for as long as possible,” Bissonnette adds.

The clinic also serves as the nidus for ataxia research and future clinical trials that could unlock better ways treat ataxia, Bissonnette adds.

“Being able to be a central location where people can go and get their genetic testing or their physical therapy evaluations and things like that means that we can now start to do clinical

trials with patients because we’ll have enough patients to do those trials,” Bissonnette says. “I think the research component is going to be really important. The patient outreach has already started because the patients are interested in getting to know each other and getting to share their stories.”