In 1998, Melissa Sparks, a 35-year-old single mother of two young daughters from rural Dickson County, Tennessee, developed a headache so excruciating it dropped her to her knees.<\/p>\n
Her mother rushed her to the nearest hospital, but by the time they arrived, Sparks was unconscious. When she awoke, she couldn\u2019t remember what day it was. She couldn\u2019t count the money in her purse. A college graduate, she struggled even to read and write beyond a sixth-grade level.<\/p>\n
Eight years earlier, Sparks had been diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease that attacks tissues throughout the body. Lupus is notoriously difficult to diagnose; at the time, doctors knew even less about its impact on the brain. \u201cThey had no idea what happened to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sparks spent the next two years relearning basic skills, including four months of intensive outpatient speech and language therapy at the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center. No longer able to work, she had to give up her home, and she and the girls moved in with her parents.<\/p>\n
Fast-forward 24 years, and Sparks came across an online notice seeking subjects for a clinical trial to test whether memantine, a drug approved for the treatment of Alzheimer\u2019s disease, also may relieve the \u201cbrain fog\u201d experienced by many patients with lupus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know they could do anything for my memory,\u201d said Sparks, who has continued to experience cognitive impairment and short-term memory problems. When invited to join the study and take a chance that her symptoms might improve, she did not hesitate. \u201cI was all on board,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sparks has since completed the clinical trial and is taking memantine under the supervision of her physician. So far, the results have been less than spectacular. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s ever going to be that great for me,\u201d she said. \u201cI think I will always have some short-term memory problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t mean she feels her contributions to clinical research were for naught. On the contrary, more research is urgently needed. For one thing, there are only two drugs on the market approved for the specific treatment of lupus symptoms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of options,\u201d Sparks said. \u201cI\u2019m all about finding something that is going to help someone behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1998, Melissa Sparks, a 35-year-old single mother of two young daughters from rural Dickson County, Tennessee, developed a headache so excruciating it dropped her to her knees. Her mother rushed her to the nearest hospital, but by the time they arrived, Sparks was unconscious. When she awoke, she couldn\u2019t remember what day it was….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vm-related-content","category-vm-summer-2023"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcDnub-X1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3660,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659\/revisions\/3660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}