Latest news with #StJosephsHealthCare
Gizmodo
07-07-2025
- Health
- Gizmodo
This Cough Syrup Ingredient Might Actually Slow Dementia
Today's cough syrup could turn into tomorrow's treatment for Parkinson's disease. Recent research in the U.K. is the latest to suggest that a common ingredient in cough syrup, ambroxol, might be able to slow down the progression of Parkinson's. Scientists at St. Joseph's Health Care London conducted the year-long small study, which involved 55 patients with Parkinson's-related dementia. The drug was safely tolerated and may have stabilized people's symptoms, particularly people more genetically vulnerable to the neurodegenerative disease. Researchers elsewhere have already begun to test ambroxol for Parkinson's and related dementias in larger trials. 'These findings suggest Ambroxol may protect brain function, especially in those genetically at risk. It offers a promising new treatment avenue where few currently exist,' said study author Stephen Pasternak, a cognitive neuroscientist at Lawson Research Institute, the research arm of St. Joseph's Health Care London, in a statement from the university. The Surprising Connection Between Living Near Golf Courses and Parkinson's Disease Ambroxol is commonly used as an expectorant in cough syrup, helping thin out mucus so people with respiratory illnesses can clear phlegm from their airways and breathe easier. But recently, scientists have speculated that it can also target a key driver of Parkinson's, the accumulation of abnormal alpha-synuclein in the brain. Studies have found that ambroxol can raise people's levels of glucocerebrosidase (GCase), another protein that helps regulate the brain's waste clearance system. In people with Parkinson's, levels of GCase tend to decline as levels of abnormal alpha-synuclein rise. It's also known that people with certain genetic mutations affecting GCase function are at higher risk for Parkinson's. Scientists have hoped that ambroxol can indirectly lower people's alpha-synuclein by increasing GCase, reversing or at least slowing down the progression of Parkinson's. The researchers randomized people with Parkinson's-related dementia to either receive a placebo or a high dose of ambroxol (taken via pills daily) over a 12-month span. There were no severe symptoms linked to the drug's use, the researchers found, and common adverse effects were typically gastrointestinal. People on placebo also experienced worsening psychiatric symptoms of their Parkinson's and an increase in levels of GFAP (a blood marker of brain damage), whereas those on ambroxol appeared to stay about the same. 'This early trial offers hope and provides a strong foundation for larger studies,' Pasternak said. The team's results, published late last month in JAMA Neurology, were not a clear home run, however. There was overall no difference in cognition between the placebo and treatment groups, for instance. People with GCase-related genetic mutations taking the drug may have experienced improved cognition, though the sample sizes were too small to know for sure. Scientists Are Testing an Old Cough Medicine as a Parkinson's Disease Treatment That said, enough evidence has built up that other scientists are taking a chance on ambroxol. There are at least three clinical trials of the drug for Parkinson's and similar conditions linked to GCase underway right now. The largest of these trials is testing ambroxol in over 300 people with Parkinson's over a two-year span. It will take years for these studies to wrap up, but if successful, ambroxol could very well become the first treatment able to slow down the destruction caused by Parkinson's.
CBC
29-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Trauma, violence-informed primary care key to London hospital's planned clinic
A new clinic set to open later this year aims to fill a longtime healthcare gap faced by survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in London. St. Joseph's Health Care London (SJHCL) announced that a primary health care clinic specializing in trauma and violence-informed care will open at St. Joseph's Hospital, with a focus on women and children affected by intimate partner violence and sexual crimes. The Trauma and Violence Specialized Primary Care Clinic will be located on the hospital's fourth floor and open in the coming months, SJHCL unveiled on Wednesday. St. Joseph's officials are heralding it as a first-of-its-kind in Canada. The clinic is more than a decade in the making and will connect survivors to the kind of primary health care many may not have access to. It will also "fill a significant gap in the community, particularly for racialized individuals, those with disabilities, immigrants and refugees, and 2SLGBTQIA+ people," SJHCL said in a statement. More than half of the people visiting St. Joseph's Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Treatment Program have no primary care physician, said Dr. Susan McNair, the program's medical director. "It's unique in that we are looking at trauma as an entity here, where often the outcome of difficult, traumatic events play out in different health ways," McNair said. Instead of focusing on an individual outcome of that trauma, such as addiction, "this program is identifying individuals with trauma and responding then to the unique needs of trauma survivors," she said. That includes helping them understand how that trauma is linked to their current health situation. People who experience significant early-life trauma come with a significantly higher risk of addiction and chronic health conditions later in life. "One of the things we'll study is, when we help people to understand that link and reduce some of that self-blame, does it lead to better outcomes?" she said. Such clinics can help in rebuilding trust While many healthcare professionals use a trauma-informed approach, having a clinic dedicated to and named for trauma and violence-informed care is an opportunity to connect with those reluctant to seek healthcare, said Chuck Lazenby, executive director of Unity Project. The agency provides emergency shelter, housing stability, and supportive housing services to those experiencing homelessness, among them domestic violence and sexual assault survivors. "Certainly folks who access our services, or you know, who are experiencing homelessness or are street-involved, have a significant distrust of the medical system," said Lazenby. "Programs like this can help rebuild that trust, especially when it's a recognition of a person's experience of trauma and violence and coming from that trauma-informed approach. It's really necessary for folks that we see to be able to access supports like that." The new clinic is being launched with the help of $3.82 million in provincial funding from the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, announced in the last several weeks, which will cover the next two-and-a-half years. Staffed with at least four physicians and two social workers, it's anticipated the clinic will serve around 600 people in its first two years, with patients initially referred from within the hospital. Patients considered for referral would be those with no family doctor who have a history of "significant adverse childhood experiences, or significant adult events of trauma," McNair said. Along with its role as a primary care clinic, it will also serve as a source of research regarding trauma survivors and their primary care needs — research that can be used to teach future healthcare staff and inform treatment decisions elsewhere at the hospital.
