Can cognitive tests differentiate PSP and Parkinson's Disease
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Can cognitive tests differentiate Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and Parkinson's Disease
IRAS ID
271735
Contact name
Daniel Smith
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Durham University
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) is a rare brain disease that that causes problems with walking, swallowing, speech and eye-movements. It is a rare disease and sometimes mistaken for Parkinson’s disease (PD). Existing research, including a pilot study we ran from 2015-2019, suggests that people with PSP have some problems with visuospatial attention and short term memory that people PD do not experience. The current study will extend this research by comparing people with PSP and people with PD on a range of tests that measure these cognitive functions. Specifically people with PSP, people with Parkinson’s disease and healthy participants will complete computer based tests that measure their visual attention. For example, in one test participants must search a scene to find a target object. We will also measure short term memory, the ability to recognise emotions and eye-movements. These tests can be completed using a laptop, so we can test people in their own homes. We will compare the scores of the different groups using a statistical technique called Linear Discriminant Analysis to establish whether a person’s score on our tests of attention and memory can be used as way of accurately classifying them as having either PSP or PD.
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/NE/0369
Date of REC Opinion
14 Feb 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion