Quantitative Detection of Parkinson's Disease Symptoms

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Quantitative Detection of Parkinson's Disease
Symptoms

• Advisor Dr. Anita Mahadevan-Jansen
• Faraz Ali
• James Lugge
• Ernest Moore
• Mahesh Parlikad

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Dr. Anita Mahadevan-Jansen, PhD.

• Asst. Professor of Biomedical Engineering and
  Neurological Surgery
• Research
• Optical techniques for diagnosis of pathology
• Fluorescence, Raman spectroscopy in cancer
  detection
• optical techniques that use laser to discriminate
  between healthy and diseased tissue in
  neurosurgery

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What is Parkinsons Disease?

• Neurodegenerative disorder caused by damaged or
  dead dopamine-neurons in the substantia nigra
• Dopamine neurotransmitter that carries
  information from neuron to neuron and eventually
  out to the muscles
• Brain no longer able to direct or control muscle
  movement in a normal manner.
• Half a million people every year are affected by
  Parkinsons

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Symptoms

• Tremor or trembling in hands, arms, legs, jaw,
  and face
• Rigidity or stiffness of the limbs and trunk
• Slowness of motor movements
• Postural instability or impaired balance and
  coordination
• Reduced blink rate of eyes

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Treatment

• Drugs Levodopa/ L-DopaDrugs designed to mimic
  dopamine effects or counteract acetylcholine
  effects
• Pallidotomy Section of globus pallidus removed
• Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) Implants
  stimulators that block brain signals causing
  rigidity, tremors and other symptoms

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Quantitative Measurement of Symptoms

• Purpose To be able to associate numerical values
  to a patients before and after treatment
  symptoms.
• Methods used currently are based on touch and
  feel and are subjective.
• We will concentrate on measuring Parkinsons
  through two of its symptoms
• Reduced eye blinking
• Muscle rigidity

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Proposed Ideas

• Blink Rate Detector
• Symptom of Parkinsons increased blink rate
• Means of detection EOG
• Rigidity Detector
• Symptom of Parkinsons hand and neck muscles
  tense
• Means of detection Strain gauge
• Acetylcholine Detector
• Symptom of Parkinsons hand and neck muscles
  contracted
• Means of detection invasive neurotransmitter
  detection

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Reduced Eye Blinking

• Loss of automatic control is one of the symptoms
  of Parkinsons disease.
• Reduced eye blinking is a feasible symptom that
  can be quantified by use of an electrooculargram
  (EOG).
• LED detector combination that detects light
  reflected back from the eye.

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Muscle Rigidity Detection

• Another symptom is rigid muscles which can occur
  in the limbs or neck.
• A strain gauge can be used to detect the
  alleviation of rigid muscles.
• Strain gauges can detect a change as low as
  500µe.

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Methods of Strain Gauge Application

• Placement
• Wrist
• Neck
• Material Selection
• Comfortable elastic
• High sensitivity to small surface changes
• Output
• Labview

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Current Status

• Have equipment readily available for the blink
  rate counter
• Have a strain gauge but are currently looking for
  appropriate material to apply the gauge

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Future Work

• Collaboration with Dr. Chris Kao
• Collaboration with Dr. Peter Conrad
• View a Deep Brain Stimulation procedure
• Construct the two different designs
• Test and compare the two designs
• Compare the better method with competitors