Nina Browner, MD

EMAIL: brownern@neurology.unc.edu

PERSONAL WEBSITE: https://www.med.unc.edu/neurology/directory/nina-m-browner-md/

PUBLICATIONS: Publications Link

I have extensive training in movement disorders under the tutelage of Dr. Stanley Fahn. For the past fifteen years I am seeing exclusively movement disorder patients at the Neurology Department of University of North Carolina (UNC). Since becoming Director of the Movement Disorders Clinic at UNC (MDC UNC), my colleagues and I developed wide clinical services for patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other movement disorders. We provide comprehensive interdisciplinary care for patients with idiopathic PD across the full spectrum of patient issues, including motor, non – motor and cognitive symptoms. Currently we see 2,200 unique patients with idiopathic PD per year. With my leadership our center secured designation as the Parkinson Foundation Center of Excellence, one of 43 such center in the United States. Through my clinical research career, I successfully collaborated with other researchers, and produced several peer-reviewed publications from each project.

Through my career I have been involved in clinical research with movement disorder patient populations, and specifically with Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. There are there major topics of clinical research that I am interested:
1. Gait abnormalities in patient with PD and the means of gait rehabilitation in PD population.
In the past three years, I work in collaboration with Dr. Michael Lewek, Associate Professor at the UNC Division of Physical Division of Physical Therapy at the Department of Allied Health Sciences researching physiologic and pathophysiologic aspects of gait abnormalities in PD gait and means of its rehabilitation. Our collaboration had been fruitful, and we had published several manuscripts:

Sherron MA, Stevenson SA, Browner NM, Lewek MD. Targeted Rhythmic Auditory Cueing During Treadmill and Overground Gait for Individuals With Parkinson Disease: A Case Series [published online ahead of print, 2020 May 22]. J Neurol Phys Ther. 2020;10.1097/NPT.0000000000000315. doi:10.1097/NPT.0000000000000315

Hoppe M, Chawla G, Browner N, Lewek MD. The effects of metronome frequency differentially affects gait on a treadmill and overground in people with Parkinson disease. Gait Posture. 2020;79:41-45. doi:10.1016/j.gaitpost.2020.04.003

I also was part of the collaborative task force on falls in PD, which resulted in comprehensive review development of consensus-based clinical practice recommendations for the examination and management of falls in patients with PD. The collaborative task force included researchers from movement disorders centers throughout the US, Europe and Australia.

2. Neuroimaging underpinnings of debilitating non – motor symptoms of PD
In the past 4 years, I work in collaboration with Dr. Miriam Sklerov, Assistant Professor from the UNC Department of Neurology and Dr. Eran Dayan, Assistant Professor from the he Department of Radiology and the Biomedical Research Imaging Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. Our collaborative work is focusing on identifying neuroimaging underpinning of such debilitating non – motor symptoms of PD as autonomic dysfunction, orthostatic hypotension and cognitive impairment. Our collaboration had been fruitful, and we had published several manuscripts and preliminary data from our research is used for Dr. Sklerov NINDS K23 application

3. Clinical presentations, quality of life and model of care for patients with different stages of PD.
For the past 5 years we had been researching factors influencing quality of life in patients and caregivers on very advance stages of PD, surveying sexual dysfunction in PD patients and caregivers as well as identifying and implementing the best care models for patients with PD. I presented this body of work at the national and international conferences. I was invited to speak nationally on the topics above and to participate in task forces which results in several publications. At this time of my career, I am focusing on publishing the results of establishing a referral network of PD – trained allied health professionals referral network to provide timely and efficient rehabilitation services to PD patients throughout the North Carolina.