Published on: February 26, 2020

The growing interest in palliative care among neurologists is truly gratifying, considering the huge burden of suffering associated with many neurological diseases. Under the leadership of Dr Roop Gursahani of Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, neuropalliative care workshops have been successfully held in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi in the last couple of years.

Dr Roop Gursahani writes about the recent one held at IMA House, Kochi on 22-23 February:

This program was jointly organised by the Forum for Indian Neurology Education and the Kerala Association of Neurologists with local guidance from Dr Matthew Abraham. The faculty included Dr Benzi Kluger, Prof of Neurology and Palliative Care at Univ of Rochester NY, Dr Roop Gursahani, Neurologist at Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai and senior palliative care professionals from Kerala (Drs Sunitha Daniel, Aju Mathew, Shoba Nair, Anil Paleri, Ramkumar P, Smriti Rana, Rajasree KC and Chitra Venkateswaran). Amongst the attendees were six senior Professors in Neurology: Rajinder Dhamija (Lady Hardinge, Delhi), Percival Gilvaz (Thrissur), Thomas Iype (Trivandrum), Parampreet Kharbanda (PGIMER, Chandigarh), Sureshkumar Radhakrishnan (Kochi) and Mamta Bhushan Singh (AIIMS, Delhi). The course included didactic lectures including a keynote by Dr Kluger on ‘Neuropalliative Care as a new Subspecialty for Neurologists’. Role plays were moderated by the palliative care faculty joined by Dr Mhoira Leng.

But the more interesting action was after the teaching. Dr Kluger spoke about the formation of a new international society for Neuropalliative Care to be open to all those interested in the Palliative care of patients afflicted by life limiting neurologic illnesses. Teaching and certification resources will soon be available through EPEC-Neurology. This is planned to be a year long online course with a contact session in India in August-September. This contact session will be combined with an annual Neuropalliative Care meeting which will also be international. Simultaneously the senior Indian neurologists present are planning the formation of a consortium to drive research on Neuropalliative care in India.