Congress Unplugged - Bas Bloem

Bas Bloem

Professor Bas Bloem is a consultant neurologist at the Department of Neurology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, the Netherlands. He received his M.D. degree (with honour) at Leiden University Medical Centre in 1993. In 1994, he obtained his PhD degree in Leiden, based on a thesis entitled "Postural reflexes in Parkinson's disease". He was trained as a neurologist between 1994 and 2000, also at Leiden University Medical Centre. He received additional training as a movement disorders specialist during fellowships at "The Parkinson's Institute", Sunneyvale, California (with Dr. J.W. Langston), and at the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London (with Prof. N.P. Quinn and Prof. J.C. Rothwell). In 2002, he founded and became Medical Director of the Parkinson Centre Nijmegen (ParC), which was recognised from 2005 onwards as centre of excellence for Parkinson's disease. Together with Dr. Marten Munneke, he also developed ParkinsonNet, an innovative healthcare concept that now consists of 64 professional networks for Parkinson patients covering all of the Netherlands (www.parkinsonnet.nl). In September 2008, he was appointed as Professor of Neurology, with movement disorders as special area of interest. He is currently President of the International Society for Gait and Postural Research, and is on the editorial board for several national and international journals. Since 2009, he is member of the European Section Executive Committee of the Movement Disorder Society. In 2009, he also joined the board of ZonMw (The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development). He currently has two main research interests: cerebral compensatory mechanisms, especially in the field of gait & balance; and healthcare innovation, aiming to develop and scientifically evaluate patient-centred collaborative care. For this latter purpose, Prof. Bloem co-founded MijnZorgnet (together with Prof. Jan Kremer), a service provider that delivers web-based communities for both patients and health professionals. Prof. Bloem has published over 300 publications, including more than 230 peer-reviewed international papers.