Wearable wireless sensor arrays to detect the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

Supervisors

Martyn Boutelle (Bioengineering)
Manos Drakakis (Bioengineering)
Chris Shaw (KCL) - collaborator

Motor Neuron Disease or amyothophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a degenerative disorder of motor neurons. Its cause is unknown, and while its incidence is similar to that of multiple sclerosis its

progression is much faster, resulting in death within 2-5 years from diagnosis. Research into the underlying causes and possible therapies are hampered by the difficulty in tracking disease progression reliably.

This project is a new collaboration between Bioengineers from Imperial College with expertise in real-time human sensors (Boutelle) and Electronics (Drakakis) and a Clinician and Research expert in ALS from the Institute of Psychiatry (Shaw). Our vision is to use the sensors, instrumentation and signal processing approaches of neurotechnology to design and build comfortable ‘smart’ clothing to monitor the arms and legs of ALS patients to track disease progression. The new system will be validated against expert clinical assessment scores.

Student

Aidan Wickham