DOHA: Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar (WCM-Q) is preparing to study prevalence and causes of health problems affecting old people in Qatar.
The study will focus on neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s which affect people above 60, said Dr. Basim Uthman (pictured), Vice Chair and Professor, Clinical Neurology and Clinical Neuroscience, WCM-Q. It will also compare prevalence of the diseases in other countries to help reduce risk factors.
Alzheimer’s affects memory, thinking, behaviour and emotion while Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects movement.
“The study will estimate prevalence of disorders among the elderly above 60, including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s. We are interested in looking at whether the prevalence of the diseases in Qatar is more or less compared to the US and other countries and whether related to any environmental causes,” Dr. Uthman told The Peninsula. “If the prevalence and causes are similar to those in the US and other countries, some strategies implemented there to reduce risk factors and slow down the incidence of the disorders could be introduced here,” he said.
WCM-Q will begin the study after an approval from the Ethical Review Board or Research Ethics Board, a committee in the US that approves, monitors and reviews biomedical and behavioural research involving humans.
According to Hamad Medical Corporation, the number of Alzheimer’s patients is expected to increase by 30 times by 2050 although there are no formal studies on the prevalence of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s in Qatar.
Dr. Uthman said there is a lack of well designed studies to give actual numbers of people with other neurological disorders in Qatar.
“However, some of the common neurological disorders we see here include stroke, multiple sclerosis, headaches and epilepsy. Some chart studies have estimated that in Qatar 50 per 100,000 population are affected by strokes every year. The prevalence of epilepsy is not much different from international figures.
