Prof. Pınar Yalınay Dikmen, MD

Prof. Pınar Yalınay Dikmen, MD is a neurologist at Acibadem Maslak Hospital in İstanbul, where she works in the Neurology unit with a subspecialty in headache treatment. Her clinical work combines general neurological assessment with clinical neurophysiology, including EEG and EMG, and she also provides pediatric headache care. She has more than 40 years in medicine and consults in Turkish and English.

Dr. Dikmen studied at İstanbul University Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine from 1986 to 1994 and completed her neurology training at Okmeydanı Training and Research Hospital in 2000, where she worked from 1995 to 2000. In 1998 she was an observer at Baylor College of Medicine’s Neurology Department in Houston. From 2000 to 2002 she practiced at 29 Mayıs Hospital, and she has worked within Acıbadem Healthcare Services since 2002. In 2007 she became an Assistant Associate Professor at Acıbadem University Faculty of Medicine, and in 2010 she earned a master’s degree in Electrophysiology/Neuroscience at İstanbul University Health Sciences Institute. She was appointed Associate Professor of Neurology in 2013 and, in 2016, spent time as an observer at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center Pediatric Headache Center. She is a member of the Turkish Neurology Association, the Turkish Clinical Neurophysiology EEG EMG Association and the European Neurology Association.

Clinical focus

Dr. Dikmen evaluates and treats patients with headache disorders, with a particular interest in migraine. Her published work includes studies on onabotulinumtoxin A in patients with chronic migraine and on the relationships between migraine, depression, anxiety, stress, sleep disturbances and migraine-related disability. Her observer training at a pediatric headache center informs her care of children and adolescents with headache, which is assessed and managed separately from adult headache care.

In clinical neurophysiology she performs and interprets EEG and EMG studies. She has co-authored work on electromyography in the pediatric population, on expected and experienced pain during EMG, on motor unit firing characteristics in motor neuron diseases, on the diagnostic use of dermatomal somatosensory evoked potentials in spinal disorders, and on clinical events in psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. These investigations may be used alongside the clinical examination when the cause of neurological symptoms needs to be clarified.

How Dr. Dikmen works with international patients

Dr. Dikmen consults in Turkish and English, and interpreters can be arranged for other languages. The hospital’s international patient team coordinates the collection of prior reports and imaging, arranges appointments and organizes the hospital visit. A first consultation typically covers the patient’s history and symptoms, a review of existing imaging and previous treatments, a clinical examination and a discussion of the options. Video consultations are available for international patients, for example to review a headache history or previous EEG or EMG findings before any travel is considered. Whether further neurophysiological testing is appropriate is decided after the clinical assessment.