Analysis of features of eye gaze useful in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease for people living in rural and remote communities. A comparative study between people with early to mid-stage Parkinson's disease and age-matched healthy volunteers.

Analysis of features of eye gaze for the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD). A commercial eye tracker (GP3-HD, Gazepoint Canada) will be used to collect data. The device is attached to a laptop screen and placed approximately 65 cm from the participant's eyes. Data are collected face-to-face. For PD patients, data will be collected from a private neurology clinic in Dandenong and from a participating hospital (Goulburn Valley Health), Victoria. For healthy controls, data will also be collected at RMIT University and a community setting in Rye, Victoria. Participants will be requested to look at a red filled circle (about 1 cm diameter) centred in the middle of the computer screen. The pupillary light reflex (PLR) is stimulated using different background colours. Participants will first look at the red filled circle with a black background for 20 seconds and then with a white background colour for a further 20 seconds. Participants will sit comfortably in front of the computer screen in an office room with ambient light. The second experiment will collect data using the same commercial eye tracker but for this experiment the experiment measures saccadic eye movements. Here the red filled circle moves horizontally and randomly from one edge of the screen to the other. Participants are asked to follow the red filled circle with their eyes only (no head movement). The duration of this second experiment is approximately 2 minutes. The total time commitment for participants is approximately 15 minutes. All experiments are conducted by the researchers from the School of Engineering, RMIT University.