Closing the loop for deep brain stimulation implants enables personalized healthcare for Parkinson's disease patients

DEEP brain stimulation implants have improved life quality for more than 70,000 patients world-wide with diseases like Parkinson's, essential tremor, or obsessive-compulsive disorder where pharmaceutical therapies alone could not offer sufficient relief. Still, optimization and monitoring relies heavily on regular clinical visits, putting a burden on patient's comfort and clinicians. Permanent monitoring and combination with other patient health signals could ultimately lead to a personalized closed-loop therapy with remote quality monitoring. This requires technological improvements on the DBS implants such as integration of recording capabilities for brain activity monitoring, active low-power electronics, rechargeable battery technology, and body sensor networks for integration with e.g. gait, speech, and other vital information sensors on the patient's body and a link to a telemedicine platform using mobile technologies.