Ehlers-Danlos/Hypermobility Syndromes and Other Connective Tissue Disorders

Dr. DePace is board certified Cardiology, Internal Medicine, Lipidology, with over 45 years of practice. Dr. Soloway is board certified Rheumatology and Chairman of Rheumatology, Inspira Health Network since 1993, with over 36 years of practice. Dr. Soloway has been treating Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder throughout his entire career. Dr. Soloway recognized that while EDS/HSD (a genetic disorder of collagen in the connective tissue) has no cure (the geneticists are still working to determine the genetic makeup of EDS/HSD), the vast majority of symptoms and the individuality of the manifestation of the disorder in patients is due to P&S (autonomic) dysfunction.Dr. Michael Yayac is a resident in Orthopedic Surgery at Inspira Health Network.Dr. Colombo is trained in Neurology, with expertise in BioMedical Engineering, Neuroscience, and Autonomic Nervous System medicine (Neurocardiology). He invented the medical technology that non-invasively measures Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Nervous System (P&S) activities independently and simultaneously, as opposed to only total autonomic activity, and has been developing it for clinical practice and research for over 30 years.  He opened the first P&S clinic with Dr. DePace in 2008. The authors have been Professors of Medicine for several institutions and continue to teach clinical medicine in the various practices and hospitals they attend. Dr. Soloway has been referring patients to Drs. DePace and Colombo for nearly ten years.  Based on these referrals and word of mouth referrals from patients, the doctors, to date, have over 3,000 EDS/HSD patients under care.  Unfortunately, most of these patients have been misdiagnosed and misunderstood for the majority of their lives by other providers and even family members.  EDS/HSD is a multisystem, multifaceted disorder that is poorly understood and the P&S manifestations and treatments are also poorly understood throughout the healthcare community.  To this end the doctors/authors wish to teach providers and patients alike, to raise awareness and reduce the life-long suffering that not only the disorder brings but the dismissal and marginalization that the lack of understanding brings to the patients and give hope to restore quality of life and productivity.

• 1. History of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.- 2. Collagen formation review:  The genetics.- 3. Classifications/differential diagnoses of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.- 4. Epidemiology of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.- 5. Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.- 6. Joint Hypermobility.- 7. Classical Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.- 8. Spine and Organ Involvement.- 9. Joint conditions associated with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.- 10. Structural Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Dysfunction and heds/HSD.- 11. Structural Gastrointestinal and Urogenital Dysfunction and heds/HSD.- 12. Parasympathetic & Sympathetic Nervous System Dysfunction and Monitoring.