At-home neurological disorder diagnosis project receives major funding
$1M grant from The Weston Family Foundation will pave the way for earlier intervention in REM sleep behaviour disorder and Parkinson’s disease
REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is an often debilitating condition that causes people to act out in their sleep, sometimes violently. What’s worse, people with the disorder often go on to develop Parkinson’s disease.
RBD can be difficult to diagnose because the behaviour happens while the person is unaware. A new project aiming to provide at-home diagnosis using wearable technology has been awarded a $1M grant by The Weston Family Foundation.
Led by Dr. Ron Postuma, a clinician-researcher at The Neuro of Ï㽶ÊÓƵ and Director of the Division of Neurology at the Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Health Centre, the project will develop a quick and accurate diagnostic tool for RBD by using actigraphy and state-of-the-art data analysis. Actigraphy is the monitoring and recording of motor activity while awake and asleep. The goal of the project is to pave the way for an inexpensive and easy to use method of identifying RBD patients, and potentially predicting their likelihood of developing Parkinson’s later in life.
About the grant
The Weston Family Foundation’s Brain Health: Sleep 2023 program follows growing evidence that making key lifestyle changes may reduce the risk of brain diseases of aging and slow cognitive decline. The program aims to reduce the risk and/or slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases of aging by accelerating the development of healthy lifestyle approaches relating to sleep.
In all, are being awarded for their work around their development of sleep-based strategies to improve brain-related outcome measures relevant to, or associated with, neurodegenerative diseases of aging.
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