Steering Committee
Profiles
Mauro Manconi, MD, PhD,
(Chair)
Dr. Manconi is the Head of the
Service at the Sleep and Epilepsy
Centre of the Neurocenter of
Southern Switzerland, Lugano,
Switzerland. He is currently
involved in clinical and basic
research in the sleep field, with
particular interest in sleep related
motor disorders.
Denise Sharon, MD, PhD, (Vice
Chair)
Dr. Sharon completed her med-
ical training at Sackler School of
Medicine in Tel Aviv, followed by
a psychiatry residency in Israel
and a PhD in psychology from
Temple University. She is board
certified in sleep medicine and
has been practicing in Louisiana
for over 15 years. She is the clin-
ical director of Comprehensive
Sleep and Research Center and of
Advanced Sleep Center and is an
assistant professor at the Tulane
University School of Medicine in
New Orleans where she initiated
the fellowship in sleep medicine.
Her clinical focus is the diagnosis
and treatment of sleep disorders
in adults and children. Her
research interests are the diagno-
sis and treatment of RLS, various
treatments for sleep disorders
and treatment compliance.
2013 - 2014
chair
Mauro Manconi, MD, PhD
vice-chair
Denise Sharon, MD, PhD
members
Brian Koo, MD
M. Suzanne Stevens, MD, MS
Lynn Marie Trotti, MD, MSc
AASM Membership Sections Newsletter
■
Issue # 4
13
Movement Disorders
The Movement Disorder Section Committee welcomes Dr. Suzanne
Stevens, from the Department of Neurology at the University of Kansas,
as a new member to the section steering committee. We thank Dr. Xiang
Gao, who served as a member in the past year. The remaining committee
positions are unchanged with Dr. Mauro Manconi (Chair), Dr. Denise
Sharon (Vice-Chair), Dr. Lynn Marie Trotti and Dr. Brian Koo.
Dr. Manconi chaired a successful section meeting at the APSS in Bal-
timore 2013, where several interesting topics were discussed. Dr. Sharon
updated the audience on the work concerning the revision of the new
International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD-3), focusing on the
chapter of the sleep related movement disorders. The Committee also
discussed the review paper by Aurora et al. on the meta-analyses on the
treatment of RLS and PLM (Sleep 2012;35(8):1039-1062). The section
Investigator Award was assigned to Dr. Stephany Fulda (Switzerland), for
her poster presentation titled: “Respiratory related leg movements: what
is the evidence behind the rules?” The section also chose an article of the
year related to sleep related movement disorders, which was awarded to
Dr. Huynh, one of the authors of the paper titled “Sleep bruxism is asso-
ciated with a rise in arterial blood pressure” (Sleep 2012;35(4):529-536).
Discussion at the section meeting also included proposing a task force
to revise the criteria of scoring of the respiratory related leg movements
based on a new advanced computerized method. The ongoing project
to create outcome assessment measures was also presented at the APSS.
Finally, the audience discussed possible proposals for the SLEEP 2014 in
Minneapolis. The main topics raised by the audience were: animal model
of RLS, RLS/PLM and hypoxia, RLS related augmentation management,
and secondary forms of RLS. The committee agreed on the necessity to
bolster interest for the non RLS/PLM sleep related movement disorders,
such as bruxism and nocturnal cramps.
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