Tweet Chat Highlights: MS Awareness Month

On March 24, 2021, NeurologyLive partnered with Barry Singer, MD, for a chat on Twitter to discuss and raise awareness towards multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease that impacts nearly 1 million Americans each year. Singer is currently the director and founder of the MS Center for Innovations in Care and is also the host of the MS Living Well Podcast.

Topics of the night included the greatest unmet needs for people living with MS, exciting types of MS research, and symptoms associated with the disease that need treatment options. Participants in the chat also answered questions on advice to give to newly diagnosed patients, lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how MS care will evolve over the next 10 years.

Throughout the night, participants chimed in with responses while Singer and NeurologyLive provided helpful links and resources to the overall community. The tweet chat lasted over an hour, with more than 20 participants, both from a health care professional and patient backgrounds sharing their thoughts. Here, we highlight some of the notable responses:

Singer quoted that cognition is the greatest MS symptom that needs new treatment options, noting that brain processing speed time can be slower in this patient population and that speech therapy may an option to help alleviate this. Meghan Beier, PhD, clinical and research psychologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Abbey Hughes, PhD, tacked on to Singer’s response.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the delivery of clinical care has been a major topic of focus. There’s no doubt that telemedicine was accelerated because of the pandemic, but most clinicians agree it’s for the better. Gabriel Pardo, MD, director, OMRF Multiple Sclerosis Center of Excellence, feels as though telemedicine’s impact is only going to help in the future.

For Stephen Krieger, MD, the greatest lesson learned from the pandemic has been more focused on the building and maintaining the personal relationship a clinician has with their patient.

MS has been a disease space that has benefitted from an influx of disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) and a growing momentum within the community. Looking forward, there is a palpable buzz among clinicians of how care can continue to evolve. Daniel Ontaneda, MD, neurologist, Cleveland Clinic’s Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis, and Jenny Feng, MD, neuroimmunologist, Cleveland Clinic, shared their thoughts.

NeurologyLive has been committed to contributing socially and raising awareness to neurological disorders and the impact they have on their communities. Stay on the lookout for future events and tweet chats that highlight these issues.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter @neurology_live.