La Clinique Interdisciplinaire de Mémoire (CIME) du CHU de Québec at Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus, Québec City
Dr. Rémi W. Bouchard is a Behavioral Neurologist, Founder and Director of La Clinique Interdisciplinaire de Mémoire (CIME) du CHU de Québec at Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus in Québec City, one of the oldest memory clinic in Canada. This memory clinic now includes 6 specialists (3 Neurologists, 1 Geriatrician, 1 Neuropsychiatrist, 1 Geriatric Psychiatrist, all trained in behaviour neurology) in addition to 2 Clinical Neuropsychologists, 2 Clinical Nurses, 4 Research Nurses/Coordinators as well as pre- and post-graduate students.
Dr Bouchard’s interest in cognitive functions dates back to 1966 when, after Medical School, he studied 355 cases of cerebral palsy with a colleague, some of them having very little cognitive impairment despite severe physical handicap. After a year of Internal Medicine Residency he joined a research group at Laval University under Prof. L.-J. Poirier and worked on experimental tremor in primates. He had a particular interest for the basal ganglia and the limbic system and obtained a Master’s degree in neurophysiology. He then joined Dr Norman Geschwind in Boston at Harvard University for cognitive and behaviour neurology training, followed by a fellowship in Paris at La Salpêtrière under Prof. François Lhermitte. Dr Bouchard is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Laval University and Adjunct Professor at McGill University.
For the past 43 years he has been evaluating patients with cognitive problems including subjective complaints, Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and a variety of complex/atypical dementia syndromes. He has participated as Principal Investigator in numerous clinical trials on Alzheimer’s Disease or MCI. He was involved in the first Canadian Study of Health and Aging and collaborated also with CERAD.
He has been very active in teaching at all levels, at Medical School, at the School of Psychology and at the hospital for residency programs in Neurology, Psychiatry, Geriatric medicine and Family medicine. He participated in many CMEs and as of September 2014 has accumulated 399 presentations (courses, lectures, conferences) to different groups of physicians in the province in the cognitive domain with a special focus on the recognition of the clinical profile, the early diagnosis and possible treatments of cognitive disorders, particularly Alzheimer’s Disease. He has authored or co-authored 87 publications and several book chapters. In 2012 at the first congrès québécois sur la maladie d’Alzheimer, he was honoured by the Memory Clinics Consortium of Québec for his work as a pioneer in the cognitive domain and the Consortium created an award on his behalf (Prix Rémi W. Bouchard) to be offered every other year at the Québec Alzheimer congress to the winner of the best poster presented by a young researcher in the area of cognitive problems.
At the community level Dr Bouchard has given many public lectures and, over the years, has become the main contact for the media who wished to discuss topics related to Alzheimer’s Disease. He is member of the administration council of the Québec Alzheimer Society since it was founded nearly 30 years ago, is a member of the C5R since the beginning and is the president of the 2e Congrès Québécois sur la maladie d’Alzheimer et les maladies apparentées which will be held in November 2014 in Québec. He is a member of the Canadian Neurological Society, the Research Center of CHU de Québec (FRSQ Center of Excellence) at Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus and is a board member for two funds related to Alzheimer’s Disease research at Laval University. Dr Bouchard is an active collaborator with other members at CIME for many research projects in different aspects of cognitive decline such as clinical, epidemiological, genetic, imaging for early diagnosis and in clinical trials.