Cape Hearing Implants welcomes Prof Michael Strupp. Cape Hearing Implants (CHi) is delighted to welcome Professor Michael Strupp as a new team member. CHi is a non-profit company that specialises in implantable hearing devices. His particular area of interest is the diagnosis and treatment of vestibular, ocular motor and cerebellar disorders.
Prof Strupp is a world-renowned neurologist. His particular area of interest is the diagnosis and therapy of vestibular, ocular motor and cerebellar disorders.
He will contribute to helping CHi patients with implantable hearing devices who suffer from vertigo, dizziness and disequilibrium. This will be achieved by acting as an external consultant to the team and consulting challenging and complicated patients when visiting South Africa.
He is currently a Professor of Neurology at the Department of Neurology and German Centre for Vertigo and Balance Disorders at the Ludwig Maximilians University Hospital in Munich, Germany. He travels all over the world, teaching and presenting on courses. Some of his previous lectures can be viewed here www.youtube.com
Prof Strupp is an honorary member of the South African ear-nose-and-throat (SA ENT ) society and holds a travelling Professorship from the University of Pretoria. He visits South Africa annually. During these visits, he teaches and lectures, usually in partnership with South African ENT Specialist Dr Louis Hofmeyr, on vertigo, dizziness, and disequilibrium. He has a gift for teaching, and focuses on the practical aspects of his speciality. He is also very pragmatic regarding history taking and physical examination. He can explain tricky elements in neurology and neuro-otology in a very simplistic way. He also rightly emphasises that repetition is the key to mastering complex concepts.
Prof Strupp has participated in numerous vestibular courses in South Africa, including all the Updates in the management of patients with vestibular disorders and, recently, the masterclasses. In May 2022 he hostedteaching courses for registrars in ENT and Neurology, Audiologists, neurologists and ENT surgeons in Gauteng. He has also presented at the annual South African neurology congress.
Prof Strupp supports numerous charities and typically donates all his teaching honoraria towards local charities.
He has authored 440 Pubmed listed papers (h-index: 85) and five books. This is a highly notable achievement in academic medicine.
Some of his significant achievements include:
• The demonstration of the effectiveness of vestibular exercises in acute vestibular neuritis in a controlled clinical trial.
• the demonstration of the benefit of steroids in acute vestibular neuritis, a placebo-controlled, four-arm trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine
• The introduction of three new therapeutic principles, namely aminopyridines, as potassium channel blockers, for the treatment of downbeat, upbeat and central positioning nystagmus and episodic ataxia type 2; and acetyl-DL-leucine for the treatment of ataxias and Niemann-Pick Type C.
• The development of new light and practical examination glasses for nystagmus: the “M glasses” and the “positional vertigo App”.
He has been the principal investigator of eleven clinical trials. He is also engaged in the “International Classification of Vestibular Disorders”.
Prof Strupp is Joint Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurology and Editor of Frontiers in Neuro-otology. He has received many clinical and scientific awards, including the Hallpike-Nylen Award 2016, an Investigator Award by the European Academy of Neurology 2019, the Galenus-von-Pergamon Award 2020, and was awarded ‘Best Teacher’ by the German Neurological Society.
He loves South Africa and is especially fond of Scarborough in the Western Cape and going on safari. A great lover of the outdoors, he enjoyes sports, cycles to work, and is a great skier and horse rider;but he also enjoysquieter times playing the piano.
CHi is honoured to have Michael Strupp on board as a team member!