Valuable research to society
Disability due to Parkinson’s disease (PD) is increasing faster than for any other neurological disorder. Because of the shift into older demographics, its prevalence is bound to double by 2050.
To this day, the disease has no cure, so the only way to tackle it is through its treatment, however, because of the clinical and subjective nature of diagnostics, the disease is often missed, misdiagnosed or diagnosed at an advanced stage, at which point the disease escapes optimal pharmacological treatment.
An early objective diagnosis would help provide treatment as early as possible, delaying the symptoms of the disease, and improving the independence and quality of life of patients. Moreover, avoiding the costs attributed to advanced stages of the disease such as hospitalizations, need of caregivers and invasive treatments.
The project
Vilches will acquire advanced technology to develop a digital tool for analyzing and measuring motor symptoms in PD patients.
She is working with doctors from Rigshospitalet to get a better understanding of the disease, in order to build algorithms that can identify the key features.
The team is creating a new protocol to collect data from PD patients using sensors funded by the discovery grant. This data will help them develop the digital tool on a software platform also, aiming for early diagnosis of PD.
The perspectives of the research field
Vilches expects to gain insights on movement patterns of patients, and find indicators of the presence of the disease through the analysis of real patient data.
The goal? Digitizing most solutions for Parkinson's disease, monitoring symptoms and progression in a continuous, objective manner.
The project is funded by DTU EuroTech Alliance.
