Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
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A pandemic of human influenza is on the horizon: the question is not whether it will arrive but when. Knowing that a pandemic is coming provides an opportunity to plan ahead to mitigate against its impact. However, there are inevitably many uncertainties and managing these, under a constant media spotlight, is an additional and novel challenge.
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Surgery for Parkinson's disease was popularized in the mid-twentieth century before the advent of effective medical therapies. Early lesioning treatments contributed to our understanding of the functional anatomy of Parkinson's disease. Observations of the limitations and long-term complications of established pharmacological therapies for Parkinson's disease, together with major contributions from animal research to elucidate the roles of the basal ganglia in movement disorders, inspired a recent renaissance in neurosurgical interventions for Parkinson's disease including deep brain stimulation; this continues to yield much neurophysiological information. The development of potentially restorative treatment modalities, such as gene therapy, neural transplantation and nanotechnology, hold much promise for surgery, both therapeutically and in revealing further insights into Parkinson's disease pathophysiology.
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Review Historical Article
Payment by results or payment by outcome? The history of measuring medicine.