Episode 134: COVID-19 and MS Updates with Dr. Aaron Miller

This week, and for the foreseeable future, we're committed to sharing the most updated reliable information on COVID-19 and MS.

Joining me as my guest is Dr. Aaron Miller. Dr. Miller is the Chair of the Society's National Medical Advisory Committee and is also the Medical Director of the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis and a Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  He also serves as Vice-Chair for Education in the Department of Neurology.  Dr. Miller was the first Chairman of the multiple sclerosis section of the American Academy of Neurology and he's participated in numerous clinical trials of new MS treatments.

We're talking with Dr. Miller about the National MS Society's guidance for MS disease-modifying therapies and the coronavirus (COVID-19), whether you should hold off starting a new disease-modifying therapy, whether you have to take additional precautions surrounding the other medications you might be using to manage MS symptoms, whether COVID-19 can cause an MS relapse, and more.

We're also talking about the MS Society's new Ask An MS Expert webinar series that we're hosting. We'll tell you about the Families First Coronavirus Response Act that was signed into law last week, and how it might affect you and your family.

We're sharing news about a study that shows that women require fewer MS-related hospitalizations as they age. We'll tell you how virtual reality can reduce the risk of falls by predicting balance issues among people with MS before they, themselves, become aware that they might have balance issues. And Janssen, a division of Johnson & Johnson, has applied for FDA approval of a disease-modifying therapy for relapsing forms of MS.