Dystonia is a brain disorder with involuntary movements and postures. In childhood, dystonia occurs due to congenital and acquired brain disorders. Assessment and monitoring of dystonia is challenging as symptoms vary during the day and exacerbate with stress, emotions or pain. To capture variation of dystonia and interaction with physiological changes, measurements with videos and wearable sensors will be performed. Advanced analysing techniques based on artificial intelligence will be applied to develop an easily applicable method for automated and frequent dystonia monitoring in the home situation. This methodology has a high potential to contribute to optimal treatment of dystonia.
The project will be supported by Annemieke Buizer, Marjolein van der Krogt (both department of rehabilitation medicine), Laura van de Pol (department pediatric neurology), Elegast Monbaliu and Jean-Marie Aerts (both KU Leuven) and Sonja Georgievska (Netherlands eScience).
Helga got her PhD titled Knee joint mechanics and semitendinosus muscle morphology in spastic paresis in 2018, under the supervision of professor dr. J.G. Becher, professor dr. R.T. Jaspers, dr. H. Maas and professor dr. A.I. Buizer.
We congratulate!
(source VU website).