Master Class: An Expert Training in Buenos Aires

As Enroll-HD officially got underway in Latin America, medical staff from across the region convened at a workshop in Buenos Aires in April 2013 for expert training on how to administer Enroll-HD. More than 35 neurologists, neuropsychologists, site coordinators and others from Argentina, Peru and Chile attended the two-day session. It was the first state-of-the-art training workshop for HD in Latin America, says Claudia Perandones, MD, PhD, a clinical geneticist with the Argentine National Administration of Laboratories and Institutes of Health.

The workshop is designed to standardize the way the study is done: For Enroll-HD to succeed, the tests given to participants must be administered the same way around the world, and the data must also be collected in the same way. The training workshops are also helpful for patients because the clinicians who attend learn the best and most up-to-date information about recognizing and evaluating the symptoms of HD. “They are being trained by the best people in the world,” says Perandones. “It’s critical not only for research, but also clinically, to make decisions about patients.”

For instance, part of the workshop explains how to distinguish between dystonia and chorea, two similar movement disorder diagnoses. Another focus was on identifying suicidal thoughts, which are common in HD. “We have very well-trained physicians now who can detect alarm signs in their patients,” says Perandones. “They can make better clinical decisions.” A similar training program was held after the World Congress on Huntington’s Disease in September 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

This story was originally published in the May 2013 issue of Enroll!