Gait disturbance in patients with Parkinson’s diseaseStrmčnik, Ana (Avtor) Georgiev, Dejan (Mentor) Groznik, Vida (Komentor) Parkinson's diseaseDBSaxial symptomspostural stabilitygaitParkinson's disease is a chronic, neurodegenerative condition that manifests with symptoms such as slow movement, tremor, muscle stiffness, and coordination difficulties. The disease originates from the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta, and its exact cause remains unknown. Treatment aims to alleviate symptoms and improve the quality of life for patients through medication, therapy, and, in some cases, surgical intervention. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a surgical procedure used to treat advanced-stage Parkinson's disease. During the operation, small electrodes are implanted into the brain, delivering electrical impulses to specific brain regions. This procedure helps to alleviate certain motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease. However, it can also deteriorate others, such as gait and axial symptoms. The aim of this thesis was to confirm or refute the following hypothesis: Patients who have undergone the DBS operation experience a greater deterioration in axial symptoms, including gait and postural instability, compared to patients who have not received the DBS operation. Using data from the PPMI database, patients were divided into experimental and control groups based on predefined criteria. We primarily employed the standardized MDS-UPDRS scale to assess the condition of Parkinson's disease patients. Subsequently, we compared patients within the same group at various time points and conducted comparisons between the groups. We have determined that there is a statistically significant difference in gait deterioration between patients who underwent the DBS operation and those who did not. However, when it comes to axial or postural stability deterioration, we did not observe the same level of significance. Our machine learning models, trained on the available data, achieved an AUC score accuracy of 0.76 and an F1 score accuracy of 0.65 when predicting which patients from the experimental group would experience gait deterioration.20232023-12-04 16:37:30Diplomsko delo/naloga152729sl