VA Research Wrap Up: New findings on telehealth, Parkinson’s disease and military transitions

VA’s Office of Research and Development recently published three News Briefs highlighting research findings on telehealth kidney disease management, a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease and a tool to help with transitioning from the military.

VA’s telehealth kidney program is saving Veteran lives

A recent study found that Veterans whose kidney care was managed by a nephrologist via telemedicine had a 15% lower mortality rate than Veterans who had their kidney care managed by a primary care provider alone.

Veterans in the telenephrology program were also significantly more likely to be on guideline-directed medications.

Researchers studied nearly 12,000 Veterans with chronic kidney disease to determine the impact of VA’s telehealth program for specialty kidney care on Veterans living in rural areas. The program uses a hub-and-spoke design to connect Veterans with chronic kidney disease who are living far from VA medical centers to nephrologists via remote telemedicine access. The findings demonstrate how specialty outpatient care can be successfully delivered to rural Veterans using telehealth. View the full study from the “Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.”

Breathing treatment could help with Parkinson’s disease

VA New Mexico researchers and their colleagues discovered a way to flush unwanted proteins and waste products from the brain, highlighting a potential new treatment for Parkinson’s disease.

By administering breathing pulses of carbon dioxide, the researchers were able to stimulate a process that happens during deep sleep called glymphatic clearance, in which the body pumps cerebrospinal fluid across the brain to clear out potentially toxic waste products.

Glymphatic clearance is suppressed in people with Parkinson’s disease, which leads to a build-up of toxins in the brain. Three intermittent, 10-minute sessions of the CO₂ treatment led to increased levels of waste proteins in the blood of both patients with Parkinson’s disease and healthy controls, indicating these proteins had been cleared from the brain. The researchers believe this technique represents a promising new approach to improve brain health in people with Parkinson’s disease. View the full study from “NPJ Parkinson’s Disease.”

Workshop offers tools for military transition difficulties

VA Boston and VA Houston researchers developed a tool to help Veterans adjust to civilian life after military service and better cope with mental health stressors.

In a pilot group of 184 Veterans, those participating in the STEP-Home program showed improved daily function and integration, as well as better impulse and anger control, when compared with Veterans receiving the standard present-centered group therapy.

The STEP-Home workshop was delivered in 12 voluntary, 90-minute group sessions. The sessions were designed to provide a concrete framework for understanding emotions, thoughts, and behaviors resulting from stressors. Workshop leaders provided strategies to solve problems with the goal of self-awareness, a sense of agency, impulse control, and control over one’s own behavior. The results suggest STEP-Home could offer an efficient method of helping Veterans struggling with reintegration into civilian life. View the full study from “Behavior Therapy.”

For more Office of Research and Development updates, visit ORD online or go to https://www.research.va.gov/news_briefs/.