VideoPD
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Application of computer vision to track motor progression in established and prodromal Parkinson's disease
IRAS ID
278268
Contact name
Michal Rolinski
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bristol
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Most patients with Parkinson's disease present to their doctor many years after the disease has started. The main reason for this is that most dopamine-carrying nerve cells must die before the motor symptoms that define PD, i.e. slowness, stiffness and tremor, emerge. Identifying patients before these symptoms become apparent, known as the prodromal stage, would allow us to use drugs that have the potential to slow, or even reverse the disease, much earlier, before most of the damage has been done.
Whilst patients with prodromal PD have many symptoms, such as loss of smell, constipation or anxiety, most people who experience these symptoms do not go on to develop PD. Recently it has been found that patients with REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD), a condition that makes one "act out" their dreams in their sleep, have a very high risk of being diagnosed with PD in the future.
As patients with RBD near the diagnosis of PD they develop subtle changes in their movement. So far, the means of identifying these changes has been rather crude and difficult to track. We hope to take advantage of recent advanced in artificial intelligence to analyse the videos of patients with PD, RBD and healthy controls, and pick out subtle changes in their movement, much more accurately than previously possible. We hope this will not only help us to best select patients into clinical trials but also improve the way in which we demonstrate whether potential drugs work or not.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/NW/0484
Date of REC Opinion
18 Jan 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion