Neurological Disorders
Digitising the Home-Based Care Pathway for Parkinson's
Status: Active (interface in development)
Funder: NHS England Digital Health Partnership Award
Collaborator: Professor Camille Carroll, Professor of Clinical Neuroscience, Newcastle University
Patients with Parkinson's are typically seen only once or twice a year despite managing numerous and fluctuating symptoms. Professor Carroll's Home-Based Care pathway, launched in 2019 at Plymouth, demonstrated benefits for patients and clinicians but relied on manual data collection. We are digitising the pathway to enable online symptom reporting, cloud-based data integration, and shared digital records accessible to both patients and clinical teams. (Video)
Relevant publications:
- Artificial Intelligence Applications for Assessment, Monitoring, and Management of Parkinson's Disease Symptoms: Protocol for a Systematic Review
- Impact of digital technologies on self-efficacy in people with Parkinson's: A scoping review protocol
NMS Assist: Self-Management of Non-Motor Symptoms in Parkinson's
Status: Active (recruiting participants)
Funder: Parkinson's UK
Collaborator: Professor Camille Carroll, Newcastle University
Non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's, including pain, sleep disturbance, and mood changes, often have a greater impact on quality of life than motor symptoms, yet they are frequently overlooked. NMS Assist is a co-designed mobile app that enables patients and carers to track symptoms, receive targeted self-management advice, and share data with clinical teams. We are leading a six-month mixed-methods evaluation assessing the system's impact on self-management confidence, symptom burden, and quality of life. (Video)
Currently recruiting: People with Parkinson's and their carers are invited to participate. See our Active Trials page.
Relevant publications:
- The Impact of a Digital Artificial Intelligence System on the Monitoring and Self-management of Nonmotor Symptoms in People With Parkinson's Disease: Proposal for a Phase 1 Implementation Study
- Self-management Interventions for People With Parkinson's Disease: Scoping Review
- Self-Management Systems for Patients and Clinicians in Parkinson's Care: Protocol for an Integrated Scoping Review, Product Search, and Evaluation
- Self-Management Systems for Patients and Clinicians in Parkinson's Disease Care: A Scoping Review
Subcutaneous EEG Monitoring for People with Intellectual Disability and Epilepsy
Status: Completed
Funder: SBRI Healthcare (Phase 1 and Phase 2 Awards)
Collaborator: Professor Rohit Shankar, Professor of Neuropsychiatry, University of Plymouth / Cornwall Intellectual Disability Equitable Research (CIDER)
Technology partner: UNEEG Medical
Hospital-based EEG assessment is time-limited and often impractical for people with intellectual disabilities. UNEEG Medical's SubQ device enables continuous subcutaneous brain activity monitoring outside hospital, but it has never been tested in this population. Following co-production workshops with people with intellectual disabilities, family members, and carers (Phase 1), we are now conducting a Phase 2 pilot study to evaluate the device's seizure detection accuracy, acceptability, safety, and impact on clinical care for people with moderate to profound intellectual disability. (Video)
Milestone: First successful subcutaneous EEG implantation in a participant with intellectual disability and epilepsy – the first of its kind in this patient population.