The Assessment and Treatment of reduced facial expression and movement in Parkinson's disease

Patients with PD often lose the ability to move their face making it difficult to show emotion and speak clearly. They can begin to keep their mouths open and drool. Due to misunderstanding, frustration and embarrassment, they may speak less and avoid social situations leading to feelings of isolation and anxiety.
Although common, this symptom is given little attention in terms of treatment as we do not have a way to assess it in detail and so it remains unclear how treatments such as medication and DBS (an implanted pacemaker for the brain) affect it.
I would like to make it possible to accurately and easily measure this symptom and examine how current treatments affect it. Automated methods could be used to assess the severity and the effects of treatments of reduced facial expression. Using automated means we would like to demonstrate that it is possible to identify the difference between people with and without PD in terms of facial expression production and secondly, to compare PD patients with and without medication and with and without DBS.
In addition to the above we would like to look at how FEA scores are related to others measures for things such as speech , drooling, loneliness and disease severity and duration, this could provide valuable information that could help improve care.
Working with this group of patients, I have become aware of how common this symptom is and the reactions it can cause, patients and their families have told me about how it effects their ability to communicate and yet there is no unified approach to addressing it. I am certain that more can be done to improve this and ultimately to improve the lives of people with PD and their families.