Neurologist Dr. Leslie Cloud outlines impact of PMDC “Center of Excellence” designation
By Jeffrey Kelley
Dr. Leslie Cloud says being designated a Parkinson’s disease “Center for Excellence” will bring numerous benefits to the VCU Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Center for years to come.
PMDC officials learned in July they had earned the Parkinson Foundation’s prestigious five-year designation. It’s given to centers that the foundation recognizes for providing the best clinical care and research opportunities in the field, Dr. Cloud notes.
“There are only about 35 centers of excellence in the country and about 50 internationally,” says Dr. Cloud, director of the Parkinson’s Disease Program at VCU. “It is not an easy designation to get.”
PMDC is the only center in Virginia to have received the designation, which she says will bring about $50,000 annually to the center for a variety of initiatives.
“This grant will make a big difference in what we can do because it funds the things that are otherwise very difficult to get covered,” Dr. Cloud says.
The money will help fund a regular free exercise program for Parkinson’s patients who can’t afford gym memberships or trainers to get the exercise that research suggests slows the disease’s progression. The money will also be used for investing in new equipment as well as improving education and outreach, she says.
“It also puts us on the map,” Dr. Cloud says of the designation. “Patients who are looking for state-of-the-art clinical care and opportunities to participate in research will often look for the nearest Center of Excellence for Parkinson’s Disease. A lot of people who wouldn’t have otherwise found us, they’ll find us.”
Power Over Parkinson’s
In partnership with the Power Over Parkinson’s nonprofit group, PMDC has secured another grant from the Parkinson’s Foundation supporting efforts to reach out to Hispanic and Latino patients coping with Parkinson’s.
While roughly 6 percent of patients throughout the VCU Health System identify as Hispanic or Latino, only about 1 percent of PMDC patients are from that population. The outreach grant is seeking to address barriers to care among that group.
“We’ve put together a concerted effort to try to reach this population and educate them about resources that are available in the area, many of which are free of charge,” Dr. Cloud says.
The joint grant project is part of an ongoing partnership that PMDC has with Power over Parkinson’s, founded by a Parkinson’s patient to provide free wellness and educational resources for people with the disease in the Richmond region.
“They have grown so much in the last couple of years that we rely on them a lot to disseminate information about what we’re doing at the center because they now have a huge network of their own,” Dr. Cloud says[LC1] .
Among those collaborations are educational webinars PMDC conducts quarterly for persons with PD.
“We cover a very broad, diverse array of topics to keep people up-to-date on all aspects of the disease,” Dr. Cloud says.
PMDC Funds Exercise Pilot Study
Dr. Cloud was also recently awarded a pilot grant through the PMDC to conduct research on whether restricted blood flow during exercise could help Parkinson’s patients better maintain muscle strength.
Parkinson’s patients’ ability to take part in high intensity exercise wanes as the disease progresses, Dr. Cloud notes. So the pilot project is examining whether an approach that inflates a cuff around a muscle group while exercising can improve muscle strength and function despite doing lower intensity work.
“Nobody has really looked at this approach in depth in Parkinson’s Disease patients,” Dr. Cloud says. “The hope is this might offer an opportunity for people who couldn’t get the benefits from very intense exercise protocols to instead get them from protocols that are not so intense.”