SEEM: Sensor-Enabled Emotion Monitoring Eyewear

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Parkinson's Disease affects 30 million people worldwide (Frederico et al 2012) and is the second commonest neurodegenerative disorder. Symptoms include tremors, loss of facial expressivity, loss of vocal projection, muscle rigidity, dropping posture, walking difficulty. There are 10,000 new cases of Parkinson’s disease (PD) each year in the UK. One reason why a cure for Parkinson’s is elusive is because the movement symptoms (e.g. tremor) only appear many years after the nerve cells start dying (70-80% of the nerve cells are already been lost by then). We do not know enough yet about these early stages, although it is clear that some symptoms may occur up to 20 years before the movement problems of Parkinson's appear. A clinician will only ever see a 'thin slice' of a patient's daily life and therefore is making important decisions about management with very limited information. We are developing a wearable technology to identify a subset of patients who might merit further investigation and treatment. Currently, the inability to objectively and remotely monitor treatment response or deterioration does not enabled personalised treatments and leads to unnecessary complications due to over-dosing, inadequate treatment and poor quality of life.