Governmental Expert Group on Dementia holds second meeting The European Group of Governmental Experts on Dementia held its second meeting on 17 and 18 June 2019 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 20 European countries were represented at the meeting, in addition to representatives from the 2nd European Joint Action on Dementia (Act on Dementia/DEM2), the World Health Organization (WHO) and Alzheimer Europe.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the European Society of Neurosonology and Cerebral Hemodynamics (ESNCH) was signed in June 2019. The ESNCH is the most successful neurosonology group worldwide bringing together the world’s experts, thus representing an excellent platform for young researchers to present their work, gain experience and start a scientific collaboration.

Task Force Regulatory Affairs and Medical Devices Workshop on Medical Device Registries: The BioMed Alliance organised a joint workshop on Medical Device Registries with the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology (EFORT) on 17 June. The programme included speakers from the European Commission, member societies, a notified body, industry, the European Medicines Agency and experts who manage successful registries across Europe.

EFNA goes global and attends the WHA – World Health Assembly UN Geneva Headquarters from May 20 – 28 2019. Diseases know no borders. Only by truly pooling our resources and going beyond our individual disease areas, our constituencies and countries, do we stand a chance of adequately addressing the challenges of ill-health and inequalities.

The guideline education and Cost-Conscious Healthcare (CoCoCare) programme was launched prior to the 5th EAN Congress in Oslo. 

I am really grateful to the European Academy of Neurology for having granted my training research fellowship at the Department of Clinical Neurosciences of the University of Cambridge. During the final year of my residency in Neurology at the Sapienza University of Rome, I had the great honour to join the research group of Professor Mariagrazia Spillantini, who discovered - in 1997 - the presence of alpha-synuclein in Lewy bodies, the pathological hallmarks of Parkinson’s Disease.

It is my great pleasure to be invited to introduce myself to you in my new role as editor of EAN Pages, starting at our Congress in Oslo. I am a neurologist based in Sheffield in the UK, running busy general and neuromuscular clinics, with a research interest in motor neuron disease. First of all, I want to thank my predecessor and friend, Professor Elena Moro, for leading us to our current position of strength at EAN Pages.

For July 2019, we have selected a scientific paper: RESTART Collaboration. Effects of antiplatelet therapy after stroke due to intracerebral haemorrhage: a randomised open label trial. Lancet 2019; May 21 [Epub ahead of print]

Norway is located in the western and northern part of Scandinavia, and it is well known for its beautiful scenery with fjords and waterfalls along the coastline, its mountainous wilderness, and for Arctic regions with northern lights in the winter and midnight sun during the summer. Norway is one of Europe's most sparsely populated countries with 5.2 million people in a land area of 385,802 km2. The most densely populated area is around the city of Oslo in the south-east of the country. Oslo, the Norway’s capital, is the fastest-growing capital in Europe.

There is need for automated seizure detection using wearable devices, to decrease the morbidity and mortality associated with seizures, especially with generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS) and to provide objective data on seizure-occurrence...

Transcranial B-mode sonography (TCS) is a non-invasive neuroimaging  method that allows high resolution imaging of deep brain structures.  The classical TCS finding of substantia nigra hyperechogenicity (SN) is widely acknowledged as a diagnostic tool for the  idiopatic Parkinson disease (PD)  in the guidlines of the European neurological societies (EAN, MDS-ES).

Prof. Fischer presented the first lecture on the subject of recanalization in acute stroke with a short review of the current status of acute stroke management and a focused discussion on a great deal of the unanswered questions concering reperfusion therapy, including the safety and contraindications of r-tPA, the risk of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage, intra-venous thrombolysis for minor strokes, wake-up strokes, extending the time window, the use of alteplase vs. tenecteplase as well as the unaswered questions regarding endovascular treatment, such as extending the time window, basilar occlusion, use in cases with either low NIHSS or low ASPECTS scores.

This year, at the annual hospital visit of the Resident and Research Fellow Section (RRFS) of the European Academy of Neurology, nearly 80 resident and research fellows visited to the Neurology Department of the Rikshospitalet, organized with the support of Dr. Silje Bjerknes, local resident and PhD candidate.

The last day of the Congress and time to take stock. Kell Morten Myhr summarised the field of multiple sclerosis (MS), which received 205 abstracts. Professor Myhr started his highlights with papers by Persson et al from Lexington reporting longitudinal observational survival data in MS and Stahmann et al from Hanover who reported variable rates of starting disease-modifying therapy. Professor Myhr considered that these papers together pointed toward a need to start MS therapy early. Prognostic blood biomarkers were then considered with vitamin D shown to predict long-term disability (Wesnes et al, Trondheim), whilst neurofilament light chain was associated with development of cognitive impairment in secondary progressive MS (Kuhle et al, Basel).

This year’s Networking event during the 5th EAN congress took place at the  Oslo City Hall on Monday evening (July 1), where the attendees were impressed by the striking functional architecture and scale of the main hall.