Speaker: Dr Alice Flaherty, Director, Movement Disorders Fellowship, Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Professor of Neurology & Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Illness behavior shapes medical outcome, and can make the difference between life and death. When patients respond stoically or hypochondriacally, and caregivers respond dispassionately or empathically, brain function shapes those behaviors. New evidence points to medical and environmental interventions that can improve illness behavior, and diminish both patients’ and caregivers’ suffering. Learning objectives are to better understand the biology of the response to one’s own illness, and to that of others, the neurology of judging a symptom as voluntary or involuntary, and how that judgment shapes care and new ways to change both patients’ and caregivers’ behavior.

Registration & breakfast at 7.10am, talk begins at 7.40am.