By Lauren Hooper

Greetings from the Northeast Region! I hope everyone has been doing well and keeping cool in these warmer months. Now that we’re in the thick of summer, we take a bit of a hiatus with educational programming in the Northeast, but come early fall, we’ll be in full swing again. We have more than 25 patient programs in this region alone and dozens in each of the other regions as well that we’re starting to schedule for the last half of 2015, so please keep your eye on our calendar of events to see if there are any coming up in your area. Here are some topics that we at MSAA are going to be bringing to various cities nationwide this fall and winter:

• “Hot Topics in MS,” which focuses on the latest research and news in MS
• “Swim for MS” programs focusing around how swimming and aquatic exercise can benefit those with MS
• “Women’s MS Educational Summit” programs which specifically are targeted for women
• “MS Educational Day for the Patient & Care Partner,” which is a series that will target both those with MS and the people that care for them, with care partners sitting in on a separate session to discuss how to take the best possible care of someone with MS and themselves
• “Open Forum” style programs, which are much more informal and interactive, where the presenter will lead more of a discussion and focus heavily on Q+A from the audience
• Larger “MS Education Conference” programs for patients and their families with multiple presenters at each program who will talk about their respective fields of expertise in the MS world (i.e. neurologists, nurses, PTs, OTs, etc.)
• “The Day to Day Treatment of MS,” which will include a discussion on adherence & relapse management
• “Research Advances in MS,” which will bring the most up-to-date information about what’s new and what’s in the pipeline to attendees

These are just a smattering of our educational offerings and we are constantly adding new cities and topics to our list, so please feel free to reach out to us if you have any suggestions for topics you’d be interested in learning more about! If you happen to be a resident in one of the states I cover, I hope to see you at a program this fall! If not, I hope you’ll visit one of my fellow directors in your region at a program near you!

* Lauren Hooper is the Northeast Regional Director at MSAA.