Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  This whole area of genetic research in Parkinson's is one that, again, we didn't know about 15 years ago. This is where the major strides are being made in terms of developing better models. We need better models in Parkinson's; we can't test everything in people, and using some

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  I think that's one of the real success stories in Parkinson research. Had you asked a Parkinson doctor 15 years ago if Parkinson's was inherited, they would have said no. At conferences, some of my senior colleagues were laughed at because they suggested there was a strong geneti

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  It was through doing genetic studies in families. This is identifying and narrowing down what the region--

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  It was a joint discovery between an Italian group and an American group, who identified the first gene. The second gene, actually, was one called parkin. It just turns out that we hired, here in Ottawa, the researcher who just discovered that. So this is definitely increasing.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Yes, I think there are definitely a lot of success stories out there. I still cringe when people say we're going to have a cure for Parkinson's in five or ten years, because nobody knows. Nobody knows which area it's going to come from. I think you have to be very open to differe

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  I think it really is maybe pointing out that it is definitely a necessity, that it's definitely lacking, and that it could make significant improvements to the quality of care for individuals. Really, I think having a real drive for having more support services for individuals

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  This meeting that I mentioned earlier on--I try to look at that, and also what all the different specialty clinics are doing in Canada. Take the clinic in Manitoba. The Manitoba provincial government has said, yes, we'll give you funding to have a more integrated clinic approac

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  In Ottawa we have a lot of very bright basic scientists who have a tendency to want to focus in on the one little aspect they're working on. I think they lose track of what the bigger focus is, and sometimes they lose track of the applicability of what they're doing. So one of th

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Yes. We've tried a couple of times to put in.... Parkinson Society Canada is great in terms of trying to fund projects, but the projects they fund are still not considered big projects. You go through $100,000 pretty quickly when you're trying to do things, when one post-doc is

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  I will make just a couple of brief comments. I think you've been hearing that there's no question that Parkinson's is complicated and requires the expertise of a lot of different people, and the clinics that are trying to provide the care are very patchwork in different places.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  I think it is very common. Again, it's not uncommon that I see people coming into the clinic and I'm looking at, “Okay, can I add that drug on or can't I?” And maybe I can't: they can't afford it. In Ottawa I think we're lucky that there are so many government agencies and pe

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Environmental factors for decades have been suspected of causing Parkinson's. Scientists have been looking at trying to identify specific environmental toxins we would potentially be exposed to that we can directly link to somebody's Parkinson's. That's proven to be extraordinari

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Yes.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Yes, please.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  That is a good question. Actually, we broke it down into four different main sections. The first one is on communication. The whole section is on communication and how those in the health care system, whether it be physicians, physiotherapists, or nurses, should be communicating