Parkinson's Disease

Approximately 1 in every 100 people over the age of 60 has Parkinson's disease. There is no single test that can be used to diagnose either of these disorders but they are recognised as a collection of symptoms. Furthermore, there are no known cures just treatments to manage the symptoms hence there is a high impact on the quality of life and financial costs to managing the diseases. This cost is further exasperated by the growing aging population. My research uses a variety of different techniques such as virtual reality, simple behavioural tasks and neuroimaging to gain insight on the disorders.

I have been involved in research investigating sensory, motor and decision making processing in people with Parkinson's Disease with and without Freezing of Gait.

Selected References

J. S. Butler, C. Fearon, I. Killane, S M. Waechter, R.B Reilly, T.L. Lynch, (2017) "Motor Preparation Rather Than Decision-Making Differentiates Parkinson's Disease Patients With And Without Freezing of Gait" Clinical Neurophysiology

C. Fearon, J. S. Butler*, L. Newman, T.L. Lynch, R.B Reilly, (2015) "Auditory, visual, and multisensory processing in Parkinson's disease" Parkinsonism

  <h3>Collaborators</h3>
  <ul>
   <li>Prof Richard Reilly (Trinity College Dublin)</li>
   <li>Prof Timothy Lynch (Mater Hospitcal)</li>
</ul>