Services for Veterans and Their Families

If you are a veteran and have a movement disorder you can receive health & medical services through Northwest PADRECC’s specialty clinics in Portland and Seattle.

How to be treated for movement disorders at the PADRECC

If you think you might have symptoms of a movement disorder, contact your doctor. To be seen at the PADRECC, patients are most commonly referred to our clinic by their primary care physician.

Initial consultation

Once your referral has been received, the PADRECC clinical coordinator reviews the information to schedule a new patient appointment (consultation), usually within six to eight weeks.

At the consultation, every new patient meets with a neurologist for potential diagnosis, information about movement disorders, treatment options, and educational material.

You may be asked to come back for additional follow-up appointments and meetings for medical management, but our goal is for you to return to your primary care physician or neurologist in the community.

Specialized clinical services

One-day outpatient evaluations

The Basal Ganglia Observation Unit (BGOU) is an outpatient service for patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease who have problems with their anti-Parkinsonian medications. Problems include:

• medication effects wearing off early or in a choppy fashion
• extra movements (dyskinesia)
• swings in mood and related side effects with each dose of medication.

Patients come for an 8-hour observation, with repeated testing by nurses, to sort out how they are responding to their medications, hour by hour. This information then helps the clinicians to better adjust the medications.

Patients who must travel a long way to the Portland VA Medical Center may lodge overnight before the evaluation, since it begins at 7:00 am. Patients may bring family caregivers along, as needed for help, and to participate in the educational counseling offered.

Other clinical services are also offered for patients with complex gait disorders, balance problems and memory and mood disturbances.

Surgical treatments

Northwest PADRECC is at the forefront of surgical treatment options for veterans who no longer respond satisfactorily to medications. Certain patients may qualify for one of these neurosurgical treatments:

• Pallidotomy and thalamatomy relieve specific symptoms of dyskinesia and tremor and involve creating a permanent lesion in the brain.
• Deep Brain Stimulation involves implanting electrodes in certain brain regions and releives Parkinson's symptoms without creating a permanent lesion. The PADRECC is onw of the few programs in the country investigating this procedure as a way to alleviate symptoms of Parkinson's disease. (More about Deep Brain Stimulation)

Behavioral Health and Clinical Neurosciences Section
Phone: 503-721-1091
FAX: 503-402-2961
email: nwpadrecc@va.gov