CROATIAN NEUROLOGICAL SOCIETY

The Croatian Neurological Society was founded in 1991, as a specialist section of the Croatian Medical Association. Since its foundation, the president of the Society has been Prof.dr. Vida Demarin (KB Sestre Milosrdnice, Zagreb) and its secretary has been Prim.dr. Ružica Negovetić (KB Sestre Milosrdnice, Zagreb). The vice-president of the Society is Doc.dr. Petar Reić (KBC Split) and the treasurer is Prim.dr. Stipe Vukadin (OB Sveti Duh, Zagreb). During its existence, the Society has become a member of the wider professional associations, as the EFNS (European Federation of Neurological Societies), WFN (World Federation of Neurology) and the procedure of becoming a member of UEMS, EBS (Union Europeenne des Neurologie, Europeenne Boarde de Neurologie) has been just started. The activities of the Society range from providing the professional opinions from its field of work, regular informing its members about the current professional and scientific events and developments, organisation of lectures and congresses, preparation of courses in the frame of continued education of medical doctors, to the scientific publishing.

Since the foundation of the Society, two national congresses have been organised.

The first congress took place in Split, from 13-15^th October 1994, under the authority of the Minister of Health of the Republic of Croatia Andrija Hebrang, the Governor of Split-Dalmatian region Kruno Peronja and the Mayor of Split Nikola Grabić. In the frame of this congress, 95 oral sessions had been performed. The main topics of the congress were the headache, the ischaemic brain disease and the disturbances of motion. The workshop on the brain cortical evoked potentials was held as well.

The second congress took place in Zagreb, from 14-17^th May 1997, under the authority of the Minister of Health of the Republic of Croatia Andrija Hebrang. 220 participants attended the congress. In the frame of this congress, 20 lectures and 6 symposia had been held, two afternoon poster-sessions had hosted about 200 scientific papers and the workshop dealing with the new developments in the neurophysiological diagnostics had been organised. The main topics of this congress were: stroke, current trends in human neurobiology, extrapyramidal diseases, neuromuscular diseases, neurodiagnostics, neurotraumatology and neurorehabilitation, painful syndromes in neurology and neuroimmunology. Two courses had been organised in the frame of the continued education of medical doctors, dealing with the neurogenetics and the diagnostics of the brain death. Also, during the congress, the founding council of the Neurological Section of Nurses and Technicians of the Croatian Nurses Association had been held.

The Croatian Neurological Society gives the special attention to the invited lectures of the professionals from the country and from the abroad. During the previous years, the specialists from the particular fields of Neuroscience have given their reviews of the epidemiology of Multiple Sclerosis in Croatia, the application of beta-interferon in Multiple Sclerosis, the disturbances of the brain vasoreactivity, the application of intraoperative monitoring in neurosurgery, the methods of treatment of the resistant epilepsy, the principles of treatment of the Parkinson disease, the physiological variations in the inervation of the upper extremities, the changes of the event-related potentials depending on the type of cognitive task and the modulation of calcium channels by means of neurotransmitters.

During the last year, the professional mettings had been held less frequently, because the most efforts had been given to the organisation of the congress. From the foreign lecturers, the members had the opportunity to hear the lectures of Prof. Miller (National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery, London), dealing with the development of new methods of treatment for Multiple Sclerosis and Prof. Baumhackl (Vienna), dealing with the application of Copolimer A in the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. From the domestic lecturers, Dr Berislav Momčilović (IMI, Zagreb) has given a lecture on radon’s daughters and their role in the Parkinson and Alzheimer’s disease.

The Croatian Neurological Society participates in publishing the professional-scientific publication Neurologia Croatica and, through it’s individual members, in the publication of other scientific and professional publications.

In the future, we might expect even tighter connection with the european and the world organisations of the similar profile, with the participation in decision-making on the continental and the world level, more collaboration with other specialist organisations and further informing and education of its member and medical public in general.