FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 25, 2002
Contact: Brooke Kosofsky, Public Relations
(732) 632-1553
Physician at New Jersey Neuroscience Institute Awarded $150,000 Grant to Study How Drugs Prevent Motion Sickness
Edison, NJ - Dizziness is among the top ten most common reasons patients seek help from a physician. Many drugs are used to treat dizziness, as well as motion sickness, but how these medications actually work remains a mystery. Phillip D. Kramer, M.D., Director of the Vestibular Laboratory at the New Jersey Neuroscience Institute at JFK Medical Center, has been awarded a three-year, $150,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how certain medications work to prevent motion sickness.
Participants in Dr. Kramer's study will wear a sophisticated device in the inner ear that was developed at JFK Medical Center in collaboration with NASA. This tiny apparatus will induce motion sickness and monitor patients' subsequent responses to medications. Then, participants will be monitored to determine the effect of the drugs on their balance and level of resistance to motion sickness.
Dr. Kramer and the faculty of the New Jersey Neuroscience Institute noticed that different drugs worked better for different people and became interested in studying this issue after treating thousands of patients in their Dizziness and Balance Disorders Clinic.
"I hope the results of the study will indicate where in the brain these drugs work," said Dr. Kramer. "It may also allow for the development of new medications that can combat dizziness more effectively and with more certainty then they can at the present time."
The New Jersey Neuroscience Institute at JFK Medical Center is a comprehensive facility designed exclusively for the diagnosis, treatment and research of complex neurological disorders in adults and children. Services offered at the Institute include programs in spine and brain tumors, dizziness and balance disorders, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, stroke and movement disorders and a comprehensive sleep disorder clinic and laboratory.