Optimising wearable technology for remote diagnosis and monitoring of sleep disorders

Research summary

Sleep disorders are increasingly recognised as an important feature of various neurodegenerative diseases. They contribute to reduced quality of life and are associated with other poor outcome measures. Furthermore, it is now clear that sleep disorders can precede the onset of neurodegenerative disease and can therefore act as a marker of prodromal disease. The most important example of this relates to PD. Up to half of PD patients are thought to suffer from RBD, and many of these people develop RBD several years before the onset of PD. Recent cohort studies around the world and in Oxford have demonstrated that up to 80% of people diagnosed with RBD will go on to develop PD or another closely related disorder. The identification of people with RBD is therefore important in facilitating the earlier diagnosis of PD and in enabling the investigation of treatments which may delay or possibly prevent the onset of PD. This study aims to investigate whether wearable device technology could be used as a potential diagnostic tool in the early clinical detection of RBD. The study would look to directly compare the performance of these devices against the use of PSG which is standard practice. In the second phase these devices will be assessed for their use as a tool to detect RBD in a PD patient cohort, assess the response of patients with RBD to treatment and lastly to look for the early progression of patients with RBD to PD.

Principal Investigator

Prof Michele Hu

Contact us

Email: dendron@ouh.nhs.uk

IRAS number

218932