Medical Director
Steven J. Frucht, MD
Medical Director
Director, Division of Parkinson’s
and Movement Disorders
Marlene and Paolo Fresco Institute for Parkinson’s
and Movement Disorders, NYU Langone Health
As a child, Dr. Frucht was interested in science but also had a strong passion for music, and trained as a violinist and pianist. He became interested in neurology during medical school, inspired by the beauty of the nervous system and by the experiences of patients with neurologic illnesses.
At the Fresco Institute for Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders, he has the privilege of collaborating with an internationally renowned group of clinicians and researchers who are devoted to improving the lives of patients. His most important mission is to ensure that each person he and his team sees receives compassionate, individualized, and expert care.
The field of movement disorders has experienced explosive growth in the last two decades, and many new treatments are available to help patients. Novel medications, injections of botulinum toxin, and deep brain stimulation have revolutionized the way we care for these patients, and have transformed their lives.
Dr. Frucht’s clinical practice is devoted to patients who have Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, myoclonus, tremor, tics, chorea, and a variety of less common movement disorders. Additionally, he has a particular interest in working with patients who have focal dystonia.
He has two decades of experience utilizing botulinum toxin injections to treat people who have hemifacial spasm, blepharospasm, torticollis, and cranial dystonia with botulinum toxin injections. Together, with his colleagues, he has developed a novel treatment for patients who have vocal tremor, spasmodic dysphonia, and myoclonus dystonia, and have improved the use of botulinum toxin injections for musicians’ dystonia and other task-specific movement disorders.
He is a member of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society, and has served on many committees in the field, lectured at national and international meetings, and published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and 2 texts. He has received several honors in his field and has been recognized as one of New York Magazine’s “Best Doctors in New York” in 2017. “The greatest reward is helping patients live full and active lives.”