Department of Neurology, JIPMER is joining the Indian Academy of Neurology in
celebrating the National Brain Week from 18-14 December. The department celebrated it on
21.12.2014 when the Director of JIPMER, Dr. SC Parija dedicated the newly commissioned
neurorehabilitation facilities in the Stroke rehabilitation ward as a new set of patient care
facilities to the patients of JIPMER, in presence of Prof. J. Balachander, Medical
Superintendent, JIPMER.
New facilities:
Director Dr. SC Parija informed that the main facility includes a high end robotic
(automated) neurorehabilitation device (imported from Germany) for the patients suffering
from paralysis of legs and hands due to stroke. The new facilities also include an
indigenously designed and made Hand Rehabilitation tool kit which can also be used to
measure the speed and effectiveness of recovery. The new stroke unit facilities also include
computerized cognitive rehabilitation tools and stroke education videos in Tamil language.
National Brain Week:
Indian Academy of Neurology (IAN), the professional registered body of neurologists
across India was founded on December 18, 1991. The Indian Academy completes 25 years
on December 18, 2015 and decided to celebrate December 18-24 as the “National Brain
Week”. Director, Prof. Parija mentioned that at present, DM/DNB (Neurology), the post-
graduate qualification requisite for practicing as a neurologist is available at 89 medical
institutes with a total of 205 seats through-out the country, which meant approximately 200
qualified practicing neurologists will be added every year. The average number of
neurologists per 100, 000 population varies between countries. While developed countries
like the United States, has five neurologists per 100, 000 population, in India this ratio is only
0.01 neurologist per 100, 000 population. There is a need to increase this and also to create
focussed subspecialists like stroke and epilepsy services through fellowship courses and
advance research in these fields by research courses, which JIPMER is planning.
Burden of neurological disease largely underestimated:
Dr. Sunil Narayan, Professor and head of the department of Neurology informed that
the newly developed facilities demonstrates the point of care stroke rehabilitation principles,
useful for early, effective and assured intervention. Burden of brain disorders and
neurological diseases is largely underestimated. Stroke and traumatic brain injuries are two
most important causes of disability around the globe, one to two percent of the global
population suffers from some kind of disability related to traumatic brain injury. Worldwide,
stroke is the second commonest cause of death after ischemic heart disease and ahead of
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. According to WHO data, neurological diseases alone
are responsible for between 4.5 and 11 percent of all burden of disease, depending on
whether you look at low- or high-income economies. This is far higher than the number of
respiratory ailments, gastrointestinal disorders or malignant tumours.”
Neurological diseases are a major cause of death. According to the WHO, they account
for 12 percent of deaths worldwide, a figure that varies according to levels of economic
development. Lower-middle-income countries are the hardest hit. They account for nearly 17
percent of deaths are attributable to neurological causes because both infectious and non-
communicable neurological diseases contribute to mortality. Neurological disorders such as
stroke, epilepsy and migraine are the commonest reason for disability at a global scale. In
India, approximately six people suffer from a stroke every minute amounting to 1.5 million
people with stroke in a year and one person dies of stroke every three minutes. The estimated
number of people with epilepsy in India is 5.5 million. However, 80% of these 5.5 million
people with epilepsy in India do not receive treatment, though in Pondicherry, JIPMER and
other hospitals provide this free. For complicated cases of epilepsy patients should be
refereed to comprehensive epilepsy center, but at present less than ten centers where
treatment with epilepsy surgery is available which includes JIPMER. As far as headaches are
concerned, migraine is the most common cause for headache noted in the population with
approximately 6% of men and 18% of women suffering from migraine attacks and over 80%
of these suffering from some degree of headache-related disability. This is an eminently
treatable headache.
