Principal Investigators: Professor Pubudu Pathirana, Deakin University, and Associate Professor Louise Corben, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
Co investigators: Professor Martin Delatycki, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and Dr Tony Ngo, Deakin University.
Monitoring disease progression in young children with Friedreich’s ataxia (FA) can be challenging because motor control is still developing, making it difficult to distinguish disease-related changes from normal growth. This project aims to address this challenge by developing an interactive, game-based platform that allows children to participate in at-home movement monitoring in a fun and engaging way. The AIMs_Play platform uses movement analysis technology to measure balance and upper limb coordination while children play screen-based or augmented reality games. The data collected will be used to build individualized machine learning models to help predict disease progression. This work could provide a more accessible way to monitor FA in children and support the design of clinical trials by offering sensitive, real-world measures of disease severity and change over time.