Closing the loop for Deep Brain Stimulation implants enables personalized healthcare for Parkinson's disease patients

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2011:2011:1556-8. doi: 10.1109/IEMBS.2011.6090453.

Abstract

DEEP brain stimulation implants have improved life quality for more than 70,000 patients world-wide with diseases like Parkinson's, essential tremor, or obsessive-compulsive disorder where pharmaceutical therapies alone could not offer sufficient relief. Still, optimization and monitoring relies heavily on regular clinical visits, putting a burden on patient's comfort and clinicians. Permanent monitoring and combination with other patient health signals could ultimately lead to a personalized closed-loop therapy with remote quality monitoring. This requires technological improvements on the DBS implants such as integration of recording capabilities for brain activity monitoring, active low-power electronics, rechargeable battery technology, and body sensor networks for integration with e.g. gait, speech, and other vital information sensors on the patient's body and a link to a telemedicine platform using mobile technologies.

MeSH terms

  • Biofeedback, Psychology / instrumentation*
  • Deep Brain Stimulation / instrumentation*
  • Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / instrumentation
  • Electroencephalography / instrumentation*
  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Humans
  • Parkinson Disease / diagnosis*
  • Parkinson Disease / therapy*
  • Precision Medicine / instrumentation*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Systems Integration
  • Therapy, Computer-Assisted / instrumentation*