Resident Rotations

About Us

James E. Galvin, M.D., M.P.H. is the founder and director of the CCBH and the director and Principal Investigator at the UM RCOE. A board-certified neurologist, Dr. Galvin is Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine and Chief of Cognitive Neurology for Palm Beach and Broward Counties in the Department of Neurology. With an excellent publication and funding record encompassing funding from federal, state, and private organizations, Dr. Galvin has established himself as a leading clinician researcher in LBD, AD, and Cognitive Aging. He currently serves as a member of the International Consortium for the Diagnostic Criteria for Lewy Body Dementia, has been on the Board of Directors for the Lewy Body Dementia Association since 2007 and sits on the Executive Management Committee for the LBDA Research Centers of Excellence Program, in addition to his chairmanship role in the workgroup that created the Module for Lewy Body Dementia for the NIA Alzheimer Center Program (2015-present) and his service on the Strategic Planning Panel for the Alzheimer Centers Program for the National Institute on Aging (2016-2019). With over two decades of experience in LBD clinical care and research, Dr. Galvin’s research is focused on the study of disease etiology and the development of effective tools to improve the diagnosis, the characterization, and the care of patients affected by LBD and their care partners.  

Lewy Body Dementia Research Center of Excellence at University of Miami

The LBD Research Center of Excellence (RCOE) at the University of Miami (UM) is hosted at the Miller School of Medicine, Department of Neurology within the Comprehensive Center for Brain Health (CCBH). The RCOE is led by Dr. James Galvin, a world-renown neuroscientist and leading international expert on Lewy Body Dementia (LBD) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), and the Neurology Cognitive Sciences Chief for Palm Beach and Broward Counties, who also directs the CCBH.

The RCOE program provides a centralized, coordinated research resource, supporting an expanded effort in conducting clinical trials related to LBD. Using a collaborative care model with neurologist, nurse practitioners, a licensed clinical social worker, psychometricians, and a physical therapist, the RCOE program helps provide cutting-edge personalized care for patients, families, and caregivers affected by neurodegenerative diseases including Lewy Body Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. This includes supportive services to research participants and patients with LBD and other neurodegenerative disorders and their families and caregivers such as: monthly LBD caregiver support group available in person or virtual; and individual, couple, or group psychotherapy sessions to improve patient and caregiver mental health and quality of life led by the licensed clinical social worker. Other supportive services offered include integrative nutrition services and life couching by a certified integrated nutrition and life couch, and clinical care follow-up by two full-time geriatric nurse practitioners.

Dr. Galvin and his team have also recently published a peer-reviewed paper supporting the utility of the Lewy Body dementia module (LBD-MOD) for the characterization of core and supportive LBD and MCI-LBD features and its use to clinically differentiate DLB from AD and cognitively normal controls, adding to the efforts to improve LBD diagnosis and advance research and therapeutic developments to better serve the DLB community. The article is available here.

In addition, to promote community and clinician LBD education, the RCOE team holds community talks and webinars (link to News feed tab), offers an annual Research Participant Conference to provide updates on LBD and other dementia research (link to News feed tab), provides Clinical Partner Rotations for clinicians interested in the newest LBD diagnosis and management modalities (link to Clinical Partner Rotations tab), and is building an Externship Network of industry collaborators to stimulate the development of pharmacological and non-pharmacological LBD therapies (link to Externship Network tab).

For more information on the UM Research Center of Excellence, see this magazine interview or this video interview by Dr. Galvin on LBD.

Lewy Body Dementia Research

The CCBH under the leadership of Dr. Galvin is actively engaged in clinical trials and observational studies related to Lewy Body Dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, and other neurodegenerative conditions. Research and clinical care activities are conducted on site at our Boca Raton facility, which is equipped for collection and processing of blood and CSF for LBD biomarker and DNA analysis, cognitive testing, physical functional evaluation, and infusion with imaging studies referred to a University of Miami affiliate group. For a list of current CCBH projects click here (link to current project tab).

Education

Lewy Body Dementia Resources