Department of Neurology

The Robert and John M. Bendheim Parkinson's Disease Center

The Movement Disorders Program at The Mount Sinai Medical Center

There is a long tradition of clinical excellence in the treatment of movement disorders at Mount Sinai. Melvyn D. Yahr, who was Chairman of Neurology from 1974 to 1991, performed the pivotal study that proved the clinical efficacy of levodopa as a treatment for Parkinson's Disease (PD). C. Warren Olanow, M.D., Chairman of Neurology, has a longstanding interest in movement disorders, and performed the first deep brain stimulation (DBS) procedure on a PD patient in the United States. He is also deeply involved in testing transplantation and gene therapies as treatments for PD and other neurological disorders. Scientists at Mount Sinai have recently developed a new progressive animal model of PD that better more closely replicates the human disease than any model developed to date. With the recruitment of Michele Tagliati, M.D., and Ron Alterman, M.D., one of the most respected DBS teams in the United States, Mount Sinai has further solidified its position as a leading institution for the study and treatment of movement disorders. The staff at the Movement Disorders Program are dedicated to providing you with state of the art, compassionate, and comprehensive specialty care.

We are a part of Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Our facilities are located within The Mount Sinai Medical Center. The Movement Disorders Program has three interrelated components: patient care, teaching, and research. Therefore, in addition to caring directly for you and other patients, our responsibilities include developing new research therapies to help your condition, evaluating the collected results, and sharing those results with students, colleagues, and other researchers through meetings, publications and lectures. These efforts are aimed at helping you by way of advanced scientific understanding of your condition. Because of this multifaceted commitment, you may interact with many different professionals, including neurologists, clinical fellows, nurses, medical students and various other clinical and research investigators. These people are directly under the supervision of the attending staff.

Our Team

Our Specialities

  • Parkinson's disease
  • Other parkinsonian syndromes such as:
    • Multiple system atrophy (striato-nigral degeneration; Olivo-ponto-cerebellar degeneration; Shy-Drager syndrome)
    • Progressive Supranuclear palsy
    • Corticobasal ganglionic degeneration
    • Vascular parkinsonism
  • Dystonia
  • Tremor disorders
    • Essential tremor
  • Other hyperkinetic movement disorders such as:
    • Tics
    • Huntington's disease and other choreic disorders
    • Myoclonic disorders
    • Drug-induced movement disorders
  • Spasticity and other conditions characterized by muscle stiffness, slowness or rigidity

We are skilled in all techniques available for treatment of these disorders. We have pioneered some of these techniques, such as Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), fetal nigral cell transplantation, intrathecal baclofen (ITB) and botulinum toxin injections. We have helped design and have participated in several trials for new drugs to treat symptoms or affect the course of movement disorders.

Parkinson's Disease Support Group

The Parkinson's Disease Support Group is held on the last Wednesday of each month at 6 P.M. It is held in the Melvin Yahr Library on the 14th floor of the Annenberg Building at The Mount Sinai Medical Center. The meetings last approximately one hour. There will be a staff member of the Mount Sinai Department of Neurology who will act as moderator. Meetings generally consist of guest speaker presentations focusing on Parkinson's disease. Past speakers have included neurologists, speech therapists, physical therapists, pharmacists, nutritionists and lawyers.

For further information please contact Sabrina Phipps, Research Coordinator at (212) 241-8746 or sabrina.phipps@mssm.edu.

Research Announcements

At the Mount Sinai Movement Disorders Program, we are committed to exploring new therapeutic options for patients with Parkinson's disease, dystonia and essential tremor. We are currently working with several new drug and surgical research trials.

Your participation in clinical research studies can improve the quality of your life and life for generations to come. Our team of specially trained physicians, nurses, coordinators and genetic specialists work closely with you before, during, and upon completion of each research protocol. Our main objective is your well-being, and relief from the disabling symptoms of your disease.

The Movement Disorders Program at Mount Sinai is currently recruiting patients for drug and surgical clinical trials for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and dystonia. The following are only brief descriptions of our current protocols. Please feel free to contact us at any time at (212) 241-4633 to discuss the research protocol you are interested in.

Parkinson's Disease Studies

Genetics Studies

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