Supranuclear gaze disorders – How do I approach them?

Antoniades, C.

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) is a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative tauopathy. It is a rare neurodegenerative condition characterised by a range of motor and cognitive symptoms. Unfortunately, despite several promising pharmacological research approaches, including reducing levels of the toxic tau protein or alleviating the loss of tau function, there is currently no approved disease-modifying treatment option for this condition. To aid in the development of such treatments, there is a real need for the development of objective clinical tools for the support of diagnosis and for monitoring disease progression. In this talk, I will describe how to spot supranuclear gaze disorders and will go through some patient videos from our work here in Oxford. Very little is known about the longitudinal change in these symptoms over time. Moreover, the effectiveness of clinical scales to detect early changes in PSP is still a matter of debate. I will go through some of the data indicating the longitudinal changes in motor and cognitive features from our work through the Oxford Quantification in Parkinsonism study (OxQUIP) using multiple closely spaced follow-up timepoints over a period of 2 years. In addition, I will show some of the digital technology we have been using and the updated news on the use of telemedicine and home monitoring especially in the era of Covid 19.