During their lifetime, every third Pole will develop a disease of the nervous system.
According to data provided at a press conference last week on the occurrence of neurological diseases in Poland, there are 70,000 first-time strokes per year, 90,000 people suffer from Parkinson's disease and 8,000 new cases are diagnosed every year.
Meanwhile, 300,000 people suffer from epilepsy, with 30,000 new cases diagnosed annually, 500,000 have Alzheimer's disease, and 15 percent of the population suffer from migraines.
In addition, 50,000 people have MS, with 2,000 new cases diagnosed every year, especially among young people.
Professor Konrad Rejdak from the Polish Neurological Society said that despite many newly diagnosed cases, “a huge revolution, great changes are taking place right before our eyes.
“We are proud of the fact that now, after years of stagnation, neurology is a leading field of medicine, one in which so much has happened in recent decades. We have been able to decode brain functions.”
He’d added: “It is true that huge changes are taking place in every field of physiology and genetics, and we are able to treat nature's mistakes - administer drugs that repair mutations and complement gene defects. Neurology has been one of the most important fields recently, where we have a huge increase in new drugs. They are at the stage of clinical trials or have already entered our practice. It is our pride.”
Similar changes have taken place in brain imaging. Professor Rejdak said: “It is now possible to study brain functions during the course of the disease, which changed the reality and diagnostic techniques, such as tomography and resonance imaging. We can now study the functions and functional condition of the brain.”
The results include the introduction of new therapies available to patients in Poland.
Rejdak said: “Polish neurology is among the leaders when it comes to the availability of the latest therapies - we can mention interventional treatment of stroke, a pilot project that worked great in our conditions, or treatment of multiple sclerosis.”
In 2023, the Polish Neurological Society celebrates its 90th anniversary. The culmination of the celebrations will be the Polish neurology conference on September 15-16 in Warsaw. (PAP)
Author: Agata Zbieg
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