Sea, sunshine and three full days of neurology! The EAN was able to welcome 54 participants from 24 countries (Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom) to Loutraki, formerly known for its’ natural thermal springs, about 80 kilometres west of Athens.
We want to thank our fantastic international faculty, coming from the Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, the Netherlands and Switzerland. It was an honour to have the president of the Hellenic Neurological Society, Professor George Tsivgoulis, visiting, welcoming our international participants and speaking on the first day.
The Autumn School lectures focus on how to approach a specific clinical syndrome in order to reach diagnosis and treatment. This year, for the first time, COVID-19 was discussed, which provided great insights into the still relevant topic.
The 2022 programme was:
Day 1: COVID-19 signs and symptoms
Day 2: Acute limb weakness
Day 3: Acute higher cortical function problems
On day one, Helena Radbruch (Germany) gave an introduction on mechanisms of CNS invasion (Pathology + pathophysiology lecture), George Tsivgoulis (Greece) spoke about sudden neurological symptoms related to COVID-19, and Tamar Akhvlediani (Georgia) discussed the spectrum of neurological manifestations of long COVID-19.
The first afternoon workshops addressed the question of how SARS-CoV-2 enters the brain, and covered cases of neuroimaging findings in COVID-19 neurological manifestations, as well as the evaluation and prognosis of neurological symptoms of long COVID-19.
In the evening, all participants and speakers visited the canal of Corinth, an amazing 6.4km long and only 21.3m wide waterway, carrying ship traffic between the western Mediterranean Sea and the Aegean Sea, cutting through the Isthmus of Corinth that connects the Peloponnesian peninsula to the Greek mainland, thus effectively making the former an island. Nowadays, the canal is closed for construction, but a visit to a nearby bridge overseeing this landmark was much welcomed.
Afterwards, the evening ended with a traditional Greek dinner, music and folk dance.
On day two all speakers addressed a different aspect of acute limb weakness; Patrik Michel (Switzerland) focused on cerebral, Pieter Vos (the Netherlands) on spinal and Vasiliki Zouvelou (Greece) on neuromuscular.
In the afternoon workshops the participants discussed the most interesting cases of the clinical experience of the faculty, including anterior and posterior stroke syndromes: weakness and other symptoms, classification of spinal cord injury and the diagnostic approach of acute neuromuscular limb weakness.
Konstantinos Melanis (Greece) informed all participants of the benefits of being an EAN Resident and Research Fellow section member (RRFS) and invited them to join the manifold activities. A delicious dinner was served in a very nice setting and the participants were able to test their knowledge of neurology, Greece and the EAN with an educational and fun quiz moderated by Patrik Michel.
On the last day, Georgios Paraskevas (Greece) talked about about rapidly progressive cognitive decline, Noa Bregman (Israel) presented amnesia in the ER, and Tereza Uhrová (Czech Republic) discussed psychosis and delirium.
In the workshops, clinical cases of acute amnesia, the diagnostic and therapeutic approach to psychosis and delirium, as well as fluid biomarkers as a diagnostic aid in rapidly progressive dementia were discussed.
After a successful exam, the participants received their certificates of attendance and celebrated their success at a relaxed goodbye party.
We cordially thank all participants and speakers for joining us and look forward to seeing all of you again soon at other EAN activities.
If you are interested in participating in one of the EAN Schools, you now have the opportunity to apply for the next EAN Spring School! The deadline is 31 January 2023. More information can be found here: https://www.ean.org/learn/educational-events/spring-school.
