COVID-19 and the World Congress on Controversies in Neurology

The 6th World Congress on Controversies in Neurology, held in Vienna, Austria, in March 2012, provided a forum for clinicians and neuroscientists to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a large spectrum of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. With 35 sessions, 65 debates (in four parallel sessions), two satellite symposia and poster sessions, the meeting highlighted the current diagnostic and management criteria across many areas of clinical neurology, with a wide range from multiple sclerosis, neuroimmunology, dementia, brain injury, neuro-oncology, neurogenesis, stroke, epilepsy, neurorehabilitation, movement disorders and neuropsychiatry. With a multidisciplinary approach, the conference aimed to clarify a myriad of controversial aspects in the pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of major neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases, in order to gain new insights into essential problems and to develop new treatment options for these disorders.

Announcement: The First World Congress on Controversies in Neurology (CONy)

Controversies in Neurology (CONy) is an international congress dedicated to debates in several areas of neurology. Its second annual meeting was held in Athens, Greece, in October 2008, with an attendance of over 1200 participants. Several debates were held between opposing leaders in the fields of multiple sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, epilepsy and headache.

Introduction: Vascular dementia (VaD) and Alzheimer's' disease (AD) are the two most common causes of dementia overall. While they share some clinical features, key eliciting pathological events are different, and so does the therapeutic response to specifi c medications. The presented study aimed to compare the progression of cognitive deterioration in patients with AD and VaD while being treated with cholinomimetic and NMDA antagonists. Methods: Histories of 100 patients were selected and analyzed retrospectively. Cognitive functions were assessed using the MoCA test in the outpatient setting. The observational period was determined by the researchers to be 3 years. Results: The mean age of 50 patients diagnosed with AD was 71.4 years and 73 years for the remaining 50 patients with VaD. The mean MoCA score for the patients with AD at the initial consultation was 12.4 (SD +/-3.5), and the same value for VaD -10.1 (SD +/-6.1), at the end of 1st, the 2nd, and 3rd years -12.2 (SD=4.1), 12 (SD=4.5), 10.3 (SD=3.2) for AD, and 9.5 (SD=5.5), 8 (SD=4.3), 6.2 (SD=7.1) for VaD respectively. The relative decline of the MoCA test for VaD was 3 times more prominent during 1st year, 5.25 during 2nd year, and 1.85 during 3rd year compared to AD, indicating that the patients with moderate to severe AD remained relatively unchanged in terms of cognitive decline, while the latter was steeper for VaD. This underlies the need to develop new strategies aimed at cognitive deterioration for patients with VaD.

Abstracts from the 19th World Congress on Controversies in Neurology, Prague, Czech Republic, 20-22 March 2025.