Grant helps with Parkinson’s medication research

SPOKANE – Assistant Professor Joshua J. Neumiller is spending the fall 2010 semester studying a select group of Parkinson’s Disease patients, thanks to a national fellowship award from the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education.

Neumiller is hoping to find out if intensive medication management will help the patients’ motor skills after they have gone through deep brain stimulation surgery. He is working with Spokane neurosurgeon Dr. Jonathan Carlson as well as the pharmacy and nursing departments at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane and other WSU faculty. Neumiller received the only Pharmacy Faculty Development Fellowship in Geriatric Pharmacy that was awarded this year by the AFPE.

The Fellowship is for $25,000 and requires matching support from WSU. Neumiller has been relieved of all his teaching, advising, service, clinical practice and administrative responsibilities for six months starting in September to undertake this innovative research project.

Neumiller is a certified geriatric pharmacist and has a clinical pharmacy practice at Elder Services in Spokane. He graduated from WSU in 2005 and has been a licensed pharmacist for the past five years.