Rémi W Bouchard, a pioneer in behavioural neurology

For the last 45 years, Rémi W Bouchard has devoted his career to the care of patients with cognitive disorders. We write to express our gratitude for his legacy and leadership. Bouchard's interest in cognition dates back to 1966. After medical school at Laval University (Quebec, Canada), he led a study of 355 patients with cerebral palsy during his post-graduate training. After a year of internal medicine training, he completed a Master's degree in neurophysiology and then joined Norm Geschwind's laboratory at Harvard University in Boston, USA, where he pursued his behavioural neurology training,1Benson DF Sheremata WA Bouchard RW Segarra JM Price D Geschwind N Conduction aphasia. A clinicopathological study.Arch Neurol. 1973; 28: 339-346Crossref PubMed Scopus (204) Google Scholar followed by a fellowship in Paris, France, at La Salpêtrière Hospital, under the mentorship of François Lhermitte.2Bouchard RW Lecours AR Lhermitte F Physiopathologie et localisation des lesions cérébrales responsables de l'aphasie.in: Lecours AR Lhermitte F L'aphasie. Flammarion, Paris1979: 266-276Google Scholar On returning home to Quebec City in 1973, he founded the first Memory Clinic in Canada. Although he envisioned a multidisciplinary team, unfortunately, Bouchard had to practice in a hospital where research was undervalued at that time. For instance, he developed and routinely administered cognitive tests in French (the Mini-Mental State Examination was not published yet), which ended up in the archives unused. He worked hard, spending most of his career working along with his nurse, and later with a neuropsychologist. In 1976, he described the head-turning sign in Alzheimer's disease.3Bouchard RW Rossor MN Typical clinical features of Alzheimer's Disease.in: Gauthier S Clinical diagnosis and management of Alzheimer's Disease. Dunitz, London1996: 35-51Google Scholar He first described the cognitive disorders associated with autosomal recessive spastic ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay.4Bouchard JP Barbeau A Bouchard R Bouchard RW Autosomal recessive spastic ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay.Can J Neurol Sci. 1978; 5: 61-69Crossref PubMed Scopus (212) Google Scholar Bouchard participated in various pioneering clinical trials in Alzheimer's disease (such as those of piracetam and hydergine) including the trial of the first cholinesterase inhibitor (tacrine).5Gauthier S Bouchard RW Lamontagne A et al.Tetrahydroaminoacridine-lecithin combination treatment in patients with intermediate-stage Alzheimer's disease. Results of a Canadian double-blind, crossover, multicenter study.N Engl J Med. 1990; 322: 1272-1276Crossref PubMed Scopus (206) Google Scholar He was a member of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging. In 1985, he cofounded La Société Alzheimer de Québec and, to this day, is a board member. He has led close to 400 conferences and authored more than 100 publications and book chapters. In 2012, he was honoured at the Congrès Québécois sur la Maladie d'Alzheimer and an award was created in his name (Prix Rémi W Bouchard). In 2014, he received the Irma M Parhad award for outstanding contributions to the understanding and treatment of patients with cognitive disorders from the Consortium of Canadian Centres for Clinical Cognitive Research. Today, at the age of 75, Bouchard still assesses about 20 patients a week. He is always the first to come into the Memory Clinic in the morning and the last to leave in the evening. His door is always open for advice or discussion. His dream of a multidisciplinary team finally came to life in 2011, and our Clinic is now composed of 20 members (including neurologists, geriatricians, neuropsychiatrists, neuropsychologists, nurses, coordinators, students, and clinical fellows). All authors declare no competing interests.