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A new documentary, titled The Long Road to Hope, tells the story of individuals with Parkinson’s and efforts to study, treat, and prevent the disease from a global perspective.   

The documentary was produced by the University of Rochester Center for Heath + Technology (CHeT) and features 12 Parkinson’s patients from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and the Netherlands and medical commentary from Â鶹ÊÓƵ neurologist Ray Dorsey, M.D., and Bas Bloem, M.D., Ph.D., with Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands.  

Parkinson's disease is the fastest growing neurological disorder in the world, outpacing Alzheimer’s, and can be triggered by exposure to pesticides and industrial chemicals.  Dorsey and Bloem discuss the pandemic scope of this largely preventable disease and how addressing it will require a global effort with the same level of focus and resources employed with success to address other public health challenges, such as polio, HIV, and breast cancer. 

The film is an outgrowth of ParkinsonTV, a video series launched in 2017 by CHeT and Bloem’s team in Radboud University, who had already created a Dutch language version of the series.  The third season of the English series features the full documentary and episodes featuring the individual patients who participated in the film, and is available and free to watch on the .

The Long Road to Hope was produced and directed by Norman Yung, Alistair Glidden, and Iyad Amer with CHeT.  The project was supported by a grant donation from Roche.