Research group Neurological movement disorders

Our overarching goal is to develop an innovative and integrated model of care which we refer to as the "hub-home-and-spoke model": this is regional integrated network with involvement of a multidisciplinary team consisting of all relevant professional disciplines involved in Parkinson care, and with involvement of both primary care, regional community hospitals and a university medical centre. The emphasis is on delivering care as close to home as possible, and with a proactive approach. The model will first be developed and implemented in a wider region around the Radboudumc. The long-term aim is to scale this to other regions in the Netherlands, and also internationally. A process of procreation, together with patients with Parkinson's, is at the heart of this process.

Supported by our Parkinson AI laboratory, and in close collaboration with private partners, we develop and evaluate innovative technologies that can empower both patients and professionals, and that can support the efficiency of the integrated network approach.

We have a strong interest in building an evidence base for the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a wide range of non-pharmacological interventions.

A particular strength of our research is that any evidence-based solutions that are developed as part of our research & development activities can subsequently be implemented readily in the integrated healthcare networks.

We emphasize the importance of personalized health care, aiming not only to change the role of patients in current care (from passive consumers into active partners), but also for establishing a scientific underpinning for this new role for patients. Our research has shown that active patient engagement leads to marked improvements in quality of care.

We developed, implemented and evaluated novel care models for integrated care (ParkinsonNet, Zorg voor Parkinson). We showed that the an innovative network approach leads to better health for patients, to fewer disease complications, and to substantially reduced healthcare costs for society. This research has been instrumental in transforming the approach to care away from the traditional silos towards integrated networks.

We have studied the pathophysiology of gait and balance impairment in people with Parkinson’s disease, as a basis for innovative treatments. A specific focus is on understanding and deploying compensatory strategies.

We have launched large-scale clinical studies to evaluate the efficacy and cost effectiveness of a wide range of non-pharmacological interventions, including allied health therapies (e.g. physiotherapy), multidisciplinary care and lifestyle interventions for patients with Parkinson's disease.

A flagship study is our Personalized Parkinson Project, a longitudinal cohort study with extreme deep phenotyping and genotyping, aiming to better understand inter-individual differences between persons with Parkinson’s disease, as basis for improved diagnostics and novel therapies.

We have expanded our research efforts around the development of remote monitoring tools to support individual patient care and trials investigating novel disease-modifying interventions. Applying AI-driven technologies to large, longitudinal dataset provided insights into disease progression which go beyond traditional clinical measures for disease progression.

We perform multiple research projects aimed at understanding the environmental contribution to causing Parkinson’s disease, as well as gene-environment interactions, as basis for future strategies aimed at primary or secondary prevention of Parkinson’s disease.