Dr. Richard Camicioli

Keeping those who suffer with neurological diseases mobile

Richard Camicioli studying clinical, magnetic resonance and genetic biomarkers of cognitive decline and dementia in Parkinson’s disease

People living with neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease—and the people who care for them—have to endure enormous challenges. Experts know, however, that those who have these diseases must continue to stay as mentally and physically active as possible. Their quality of life depends on it.

Particularly high-risk groups for cognitive and physical decline are people with Parkinson’s disease, the oldest old, and people with gait impairment, explains University of Alberta researcher Richard Camicioli. At a time when North American demographics point to a looming crisis in care for an aging population, and an increasing incidence of neurological diseases of the elderly, Dr. Camicioli has chosen to work in geriatric neurology, a field that many hope will uncover ways of dealing with these devastating diseases and, ultimately, finding cures.

Dr. Camicioli has studied people with Alzheimer’s disease living in nursing homes. Specifically, he has developed ways of predicting who among them is at the highest risk of falling. This, he explains, may lead to strategies for preventing this sometimes catastrophic event. The goal is fairly simple: keep the elderly who suffer with neurological diseases mobile and, therefore, healthier. Maintaining their quality of life is immensely important, he says.

"My goal was geriatrics during medical school, but during my internship I realized that much of geriatrics was actually neurological," Dr. Camicioli explains.

After neurology residency he worked with Serge Gauthier at the McGill Centre for Studies in Aging, and then moved west to Oregon, where he was profoundly influenced by Jeffrey Kaye and his work on the Oregon Brain Aging Study, a study of the healthy oldest old. With mentorship of Dr. Kaye and others at Oregon Health Sciences University, this enabled him to learn how to conduct rigorous clinical research.

Recently, that clinical research received another substantial boost, when the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, in a recent operating granting competition, awarded Dr. Camicioli $602,989 over five years for the study of clinical, magnetic resonance and genetic biomarkers of cognitive decline and dementia in Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Camicioli’s study of neurological problems in older people—in particular, movement and cognitive problems in elderly people with and without Parkinson’s—is aimed at understanding why these develop. The ability to predict problems earlier might allow clinicians to devise ways of preventing them or slowing the progression of the disease.

"These projects will help us understand neurological problems in elderly people, identify people at risk for these and hopefully treat and prevent these problems in order to allow older people to maintain an excellent quality of life for as long as possible," he says.

Dr. Camicioli’s ongoing work was recently recognized by The American Academy of Neurology, which awarded him its geriatric neurology research award for 2004. "I’ve had the opportunity to work in collaboration with nurses, geriatricians, geriatric psychiatrists and psychologists, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of geriatric neurology," concludes Dr. Camicioli, who conducts his work with colleagues in the Cognitive and Geriatric Neurology Clinic, the Movement Disorder Clinic at Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital and at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alberta.

For further information, please contact Dr. Richard Camicioli using the Email contact form or by phone at 780 474-8840