Professor Regina Roller-Wirnsberger
Medical University of Graz, Austria
Country:
Austria
About Nandu Goswami:
At the Medical University of Graz (MUG), Prof Regina Roller-Wirnsberger is the head of the geriatrics units. She examines the effect of nutrition and exercise interventions on the elderly and how they prevent falls. She also collaborates within the MUG with other cardiovascular physiologists with special interests in syncope. As syncope leads to high incidence of falls and falls related injuries, the MUG team investigates what causes syncope by examining blood pressure changes, hemodynamic parameters as well as cerebral blood flow in subjects undergoing tilt table testing or doing a sit to stand test.
Our routine work involves examining healthy volunteers as well as those with histories of dizziness upon standing up, the elderly, those with stroke, PD or Alzhemeir’s disease or those with dysautonomias. We also investigate extensively the role of the vascular endothelium in health and disease.
MUG is also co.ordinating SYNCOFALLS initiative under the the EIP-AHA action group 2. This is a consortium made of 18 partners, specializing in all aspects of syncope, countermeasures, mathematical modeling as well as policy development
MUG is also involved in Action Plan 3.
ProfouND Role:
The following expertise can be provided by MUG:
1. Access to the geriatrics patients of the medical University of Graz + those in the neighbouring nursing homes (in Steiermark county);
2. Access to patients with Parkinson’s, Alzheimers and Stroke patients;
3. Expertise related to syncope: Mechanism, etiology, countermeasures
4. Access to national health policy makers in Steiermark in particular and Austria in general.
5 Mathematical modeling of syncope
6. Assessing gender, hormonal responses as well as cerebral blood flow and hemodynamic responses in subjects as they reach syncope. As syncope is associated with falls especially in the elderly, we are the only consortium in the EIP AHA action group 2 that examines why syncope develops and how to prevent it (across gender). Most other consortia deal with how to handle/ monitor syncope; we try to understand why people fall as well as how to avoid the falls.
7.The MUG also works very closely with all the space agencies. We have access to bedrest immobilization facilities of the German and French Space agencies; using these facilities we can assess regular effects of immobilization on bone and muscle health. These facililites allow placement of subjects in chronic immobilization state for days and months; nowhere in the EU can normal healthy volunteers be allowed to be placed in chronic immobolization. We use these models to study the effects of immobilization on bone and muscle health as well as post-bedrest syncope and by understanding the underlying mechanisms that cause this, we are able to develop countermeasures.
8. MUG can provide expertise, via the Consortium SYNCOFALLS, in mathematical modeling, resistive vibration exercise countermeasures, nutritional interventions in the elderly, as well as the assessment of state of the art biomarkers of vascular health and function.
