Movement assessment in Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder worldwide. Although a straightforward diagnosis can be clinically made when patients present with bradykinesia, rigidity, tremor, and excellent response to levodopa, the differential diagnosis can be challenging. I-FP-CIT SPECT has been a useful technique for assessing the lost integrity of the nigrostriatal pathway and differentiating Parkinson’s disease from other similar diseases. However, this technique remains unavailable in the majority of non-specialized clinical centers. Finding other clinically scalable solutions remains an unmet need. Body kinematic analysis (BK) using inertial sensors, can be a cheap and fast solution to this problem.

We are currently using inertial-sensor based assessments and BK in patients that underwent I-FP-CIT SPECT to discover the specific movement dysfunction signature related to nigro-striatal denervation and PD.

With this, we intend to understand not only movement dysfunction in PD, but also to understand the role of FBK in the diagnosis and severity assessment of PD.T