Quantifying clinical symptoms of Parkinson's disease
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigating an objective and quantifiable approach to measure clinical signs of Parkinson's disease
IRAS ID
191117
Contact name
Ravi Vaidyanathan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Joint Research Compliance Office
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 18 days
Research summary
Parkinson’s disease is a chronic and progressive movement disorder that has no cure. There are, however, some treatments that can alleviate the symptoms of the disease, in particular the motor symptoms which include tremor, muscles stiffness (rigidity), and slowness when performing movements (bradykinesia). Oral therapy with dopamine replacement drugs is initially given, but as symptoms become more advanced, more complex treatments, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) may be offered in addition to the medication.
Deciding the optimum amount of treatment that should be given to a patient is based on the severity of the motor symptoms and the feedback given to treatment. The amount of treatment is decided in a clinic by a clinician after a number of non-invasive assessment tests, mostly clinical rating scales. Subjectivity arises due to the clinician-based conclusions. Clinicians can have differing opinions on the amount treatment that should be given affecting the quality of life of patients.
The study investigates whether a more objective measurement of patients's symptoms can be made during normal clinical sessions for Parkinson's disease patients. This will hopefully allow clinicians to have quantifiable feedback that will assist them in making better judgements on a patient's symptoms and, in turn, lead to an improved personalised therapy (e.g dosage of medication, level of stimulation by DBS) for that patient.
Healthy control subjects will be needed for recording a baseline figure and Parkinson's subjects will be needed to variations in symptom severity.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 5
REC reference
16/WS/0143
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jul 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion