Autonomous Neurology within the University Hospital of LMU at 50 years

Abstract

Establishment of the Chair of Neurology at the University of Munich in 1971 as well as the opening of the Neurology Department at the newly built Großhadern campus (1974) provide an occasion to review the 50 years that have passed since. Further, the early history of Munich neurology is described, with its slow pace of separation (in comparison to e.g. Heidelberg, Frankfurt and Hamburg) from the parent disciplines, psychiatry and internal medicine. In Munich, they were long shaped by psychiatrists such as Bernhard von Gudden, Emil Kraepelin, Kurt Kolle and Hanns Hippius and by Friedrich von Müller and, in particular, by Gustav Bodechtel in internal medicine.Once independent, further development of neurology in Munich was characterized by fast-paced, almost revolutionary changes in neuroimaging, electrophysiology, sonography, and engineering as well as in basic neuroscience, neurogenetics included. The new department thrived under the leadership of Adolf Schrader (from 1971), Thomas Brandt (from 1984) and Marianne Dieterich (from 2008) who enjoyed the support of an ever-increasing specialised clinical-scientific staff.Evidence-based treatment of neurological disorders became the overarching and internationally visible focus of Munich neurology, with respect to both practical implementation and to research. The exemplary diseases and syndromes of multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, stroke, movement disorders, dizziness and disorders of balance and gait as well as diseases of the musculature and peripheral nerves are cared for not only within the inpatient and outpatient sections of the Neurology Department but also by units such as the Friedrich Baur Institute (FBI), the German Dizziness and Balance Centre (DSGZ), the Institutes for Stroke and Dementia Research (ISD) and for Clinical Neuroimmunology as well as in the interdisciplinary Department of Palliative Care.