Objective Assessment of Behavioural Disorders in Parkinson's Disease

Apathy and impulse control disorders (ICDs) are frequent non-motor symptoms of PD and negatively affect the quality of life of patients. Although healthcare professionals have begun to understand the extent of the problem faced by those suffering apathy or ICDs, accurate diagnosis is still difficult, as behavioural symptoms are often multidimensional, develop gradually over the course of months and clinical staff have to rely on the self-report of the patient or the report of a family member to assess them. To overcome this issue, the investigators aim to use information and communication technologies to measure apathy and hyperdopaminergic behaviours in PD patients with STN-DBS in an objective way, with the ultimate goal of improving the management of PD patients with STN-DBS.

To do so, the investigators will use three computer-based tasks that measure effort-based decision making and emotion processing in PD patients, and assess motor, cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms in parallel with scales and tests. In some select patients, motor symptoms and activity patterns will be monitored with an in-home sensor system before and after deep brain stimulation STN-DBS, and the above mentioned procedures will be repeated 4 months after STN-DBS.