Testing of motor coordination in degenerative neurological diseases

• Κύριος συγγραφέας: Καλαφάτη, Μαρία
• Άλλοι συγγραφείς: Δερματάς, Ευάγγελος
• Μορφή: Thesis
• Γλώσσα: English
• Έκδοση: 2020
• Θέματα: Parkinson's disease (PD); Monitoring; Spiral test; Mobile applications; Pressure pen; Ασθένεια του Πάρκισον; Παρακολούθηση; Σπιράλ τεστ; Εφαρμογές κινητού; Στυλό πίεσης

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive movement disorder caused by the death of dopamineproducing cells in the midbrain and is the most prevalent movement disorder of the central nervous system and affects more than 6.3 million people in the world. There is a need for frequent symptom assessment, since the treatment needs to be individualized as the disease progresses. The changes in the motor functions of patients between the visits are not easy το be clearly and fast observed by the clinicals and to make the most well-informed decisions for the treatment of the disease. The clinic visits especially for older individuals and for people with movement disorders is a physical and economic encumbrance for them and for their families. The aim of this Diploma Thesis the monitoring of Parkinson’s disease by the designing, developing, and evaluating a prototype mobile App using pressure pen, which collects quantitative and objective information about PD patients, thus allowing clinicians to better understand and make assumptions about the severity and the stage of Parkinson’s disease. Instead of the static spiral test, which can also be performed traditionally with pencil and paper, this study proposes a dynamic spiral test which can only be performed with the use of tablet and pen pressure. Also, the handwriting samples by PD patients and healthy controls individuals are collected by a computerized system and the measurements of Spiral Deviation, Total Time and Pen Pressure are processed. Thus, the clinical has now a generalizable PD telemonitoring system that is easy to exist in each Android device and have all the patient’s measurements stored. In coclusion, for testing the application, experiments were conducted in which they participated twelve PD patients and twelve healthy controls, and the results were statistically analyzed and the clinical, Dr. Elisabeth Chroni, made assumptions about the level of gravity and the progress of patient disease. It could also be useful for the assessment of drug or surgery treatment response.