More help is available for British Columbians with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), an untreatable neurological disease, with the opening of a new ALS centre. The Vancouver Coastal Health ALS Centre, located at GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre in Vancouver, will provide improved treatment; diagnostic, clinical and outreach services; as well as access to research opportunities for British Columbians with ALS.
Patients will no longer have to travel between two sites - one at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) and the other at GF Strong Rehab Centre - to receive treatment, rehabilitation, and support for their illness.
"This centre will improve patient care by providing access to specialized diagnostic resources, an interdisciplinary care and rehabilitation team, and new research at a single, wheelchair accessible site," says Dr. Howard Feldman, Head of the Division of Neurology at the University of British Columbia and VGH, and whose vision helped support the project.
Dr. Neil Cashman, a Canadian leader in neurodegenerative disease, has been recruited from Toronto to become the Centre's new academic director.
"The close collaboration between the diagnostic and medical treatment team and the outreach rehabilitation team will create increased opportunities for clinical ALS research," says Cashman. "We intend to aggressively pursue the basic and clinical science necessary to defeat this tragic disease. As an example, we have established a collaborative team to explore the potential benefit of stem cells therapies in ALS. The goal will be to develop safe, effective treatments of ALS and foster the use of such treatments in Canada and elsewhere."
Cashman, a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Neurodegeneration and Protein Misfolding Diseases and professor of neurology at UBC, is also an international expert in prion or "mad cow" disease. He will maintain research labs, the first dedicated labs for prion disease west of Ontario, at the Brain Research Centre at UBC Hospital and at the Life Sciences Institute at UBC.
VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation has raised close to $600,000 through community and corporate donors to help build and equip the leading-edge facilities at the new ALS Centre.
Ron Dumouchelle, president & CEO of VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation says, "This was a key priority for the Foundation and our donors as the ALS Centre will offer enhanced treatment, care and research to support individuals and families throughout British Columbia living with ALS."
The new VCH ALS Centre is a joint effort involving VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation donors, Vancouver Coastal Health, and the University of British Columbia. A partnership with the ALS Society of BC has further strengthened this effort. This project highlights a team effort where the health care industry and the community are working together to better serve the needs of ALS patients in our province.
The Centre also includes the Andrew Eisen Diagnostic Laboratory in honour of Dr. Eisen's lifetime dedication to ALS research. In 1980, Dr. Andrew Eisen first established the ALS Clinic at VGH to develop ALS research and provide clinical referral services.
The Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute is the research body of Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. In academic partnership with the University of British Columbia and philanthropic partnership with the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation, the institute advances health research and innovation across BC, Canada, and beyond.
VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation is a registered charity that raises vital funding for life-saving equipment, world-class research, and improvements to patient care for Vancouver General and UBC Hospitals. For 25 years, the foundation and its donors have bridged the gap between basic and advanced health care by contributing over $185 million to support the critical needs of the hospitals.
The Canada Research Chair (CRC) program is designed to build Canada's research capacity. The CRC program will invest $900 million to support the establishment of 2,000 Canada Research Chair positions at universities across the country by the end of 2005.
Contact:
Communications Specialist,
Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
Tel: 604-875-4111 x 61777
or cell: 604-319-7533
BACKGROUND
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, is a rapidly progressive neuromuscular disease that affects the motorneurons and eventually leads to paralysis of the limbs and the muscles of speech, swallowing and respiration. It can strike anyone at any time regardless of age, sex or ethnic background. ALS is invariably fatal with death usually ensuing within four years of symptom onset, and is the most common cause of neurological death on an annual basis. There are approximately 2,500 Canadians living with ALS at any given time. In British Columbia, there is a new diagnosis of ALS in 90-100 patients each year and approximately 400 patients living with ALS at any one time.
The Vancouver Coastal Health ALS Clinic will provide diagnosis and medical treatment, speech and physical rehabilitation, psychological, social, and nutritional services, and access to novel pharmaceutical treatments including Riluzole, which is the only medication that has proven efficacy in the treatment of ALS and is currently only offered on a clinical trial basis.
At present, there is no known cure and limited treatment that significantly decreases symptoms or prolongs life. New therapies are needed as current therapeutic regimens fail to halt the progression of ALS. Vancouver is an international leader in ALS research. In the past decade the VGH ALS clinic secured more than 1.5 million in research funding under the direction of Dr. Andrew Eisen focusing in the following areas: improved neurophysiologic methods for the diagnosis of ALS; collaborative multinational research and genetic screening for genetic defects in familial ALS, therapeutic drug trials, exploration of stem cell transplantation as a potential ALS therapy.
Neil Cashman MD FRCP(C)
Dr. Neil Cashman is a neurologist-neuroscientist working in neurodegeneration and neuroimmunology. He was raised in the Boston area, and trained in Worcester (University of Massachusetts Medical School), San Francisco (Children's Hospital of San Francisco), Paris (Hôpital Necker), and Chicago (University of Chicago). He joined the McGill Neurology and Immunology faculties in 1986, and accepted the Diener Professorship of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Toronto Department of Medicine (Neurology) in 1998. His basic laboratory facilities are at the Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Toronto. He also directs the Neuromuscular Clinic at Sunnybrook and Women's Hospital in Toronto, and is Founder and Scientific Advisor to Caprion Pharmaceuticals, a Montreal biotechnology company. His special areas of work are the amyloid encephalopathies, such as the prion illnesses and Alzheimer's disease, and motor neuron diseases, particularly amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He is the author of over 250 publications, and was awarded the Jonas Salk Prize for lifetime achievement in biomedical research in 2000. He has been awarded a Canada Research Chair in Neurodegeneration and Protein Misfolding Diseases, to be held at the University of British Columbia from July 1, 2005.
