Tag: August

Monthly Research Review – August 2018

~ Simon ~ 2 Comments

 

At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during August 2018.

The post is divided into five parts based on the type of research (Basic biology, disease mechanism, clinical research, other news, and Review articles/videos). 

 

So, what happened during August 2018?

In world news:

August 1 – American technology company became the world’s first public company to achieve a market capitalization of US$1 trillion.

August 12th – NASA launched the unmanned ‘Parker Solar Probe’ which will study the Sun (up close and personal)

August 16th – Singer, song writer and pianist Aretha Louise Franklin passed away (sad day)

August 31st – Joe Giaglia, director of California Skateparks, who had previously made a x12.5 scale replica of a skate board finally got it certified by Guinness World Records as the largest in the world.

Seriously, it measures 35 feet, 7 inches long (10.8 meters)!

 

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In August 2018, there were 679 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (5372 for all of 2018 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – August 2018” →

2017 – Year in Review: A good vintage

~ Simon ~ 13 Comments

At the end of each year, it is a useful practise to review the triumphs (and failures) of the past 12 months. It is an exercise of putting everything into perspective. 

2017 has been an incredible year for Parkinson’s research.

And while I appreciate that statements like that will not bring much comfort to those living with the condition, it is still important to consider and appreciate what has been achieved over the last 12 months.

In this post, we will try to provide a summary of the Parkinson’s-related research that has taken place in 2017 (Be warned: this is a VERY long post!)

The number of research reports and clinical trial studies per year since 1817

As everyone in the Parkinson’s community is aware, in 2017 we were observing the 200th anniversary of the first description of the condition by James Parkinson (1817). But what a lot of people fail to appreciate is how little research was actually done on the condition during the first 180 years of that period.

The graphs above highlight the number of Parkinson’s-related research reports published (top graph) and the number of clinical study reports published (bottom graph) during each of the last 200 years (according to the online research search engine Pubmed – as determined by searching for the term “Parkinson’s“).

PLEASE NOTE, however, that of the approximately 97,000 “Parkinson’s“-related research reports published during the last 200 years, just under 74,000 of them have been published in the last 20 years.

That means that 3/4 of all the published research on Parkinson’s has been conducted in just the last 2 decades.

And a huge chunk of that (almost 10% – 7321 publications) has been done in 2017 only.

So what happened in 2017? Continue reading “2017 – Year in Review: A good vintage” →