Parkinson’s Disease is an incurable neurodegenerative disease, one of the most common causes of dementia and disability in the later years of life. Parkinson’s disease affects millions of people in the world, but its progression is not always the same. Now scientists at UCL and Birkbeck, University of London have developed an app, which allows monitoring the progression of Parkinson’s symptoms at home.
A simple app does not have subjective opinions, even though for now it is not as accurate as other tests. Image credit: Christian Widell via Wikimedia
Usually Parkinson’s symptoms are assessed during the visits to the doctor’s office. This approach is extremely time consuming and cannot be very detailed. Tests do exist, but they just take too much time, which is not good for the healthcare system or the patients. And that’s why that smartphone app is so great – it assesses the individual symptoms remotely and without any specialized equipment. Patients can do the tests while being at the comfort of their own home. Tests can be done more frequently than the current standard of biannual checkups.
Parkinson’s symptoms vary a lot from patient to patient. Furthermore, they vary from one to another and even throughout the day. Using a simple app allows getting multiple readings over a longer period of time, which will capture the fluctuations in Parkinson’s symptoms much more accurately. The app, called cloudUPDRS, is certified as a medical device under UK regulations and includes both self-assessment questions and physical tests. It takes advantage of the smartphone’s movement and touch sensors, measuring symptoms such as tremors and gait.
Scientists tested the app in a study involving 60 people with Parkinson’s disease. They completed 990 tests on the app and were also assessed by three different clinicians. Study showed that assessments from the app were matching the ones from doctors 70% of the time. This allowed tweaking the app to reach the accuracy of 79 %. This is less than ideal, but the aim of the app was not to replace actual doctors. Furthermore, its readings are more objective and consistent, not varying from doctor to doctor.
Professor George Roussos, who manufactured the app, said: “Digital biomarkers developed using mobile and wearable technologies offer novel opportunities for disease management, especially in Parkinson’s, which sets distinctive challenges due to its complex presentation and high symptom variability.”
Scientists will continue working on the app and will plan a larger trial to see how it could be integrated into a clinical practice. Solutions like this are especially important now, when patients cannot visit doctors due to COVID-19 pandemic. Especially because they are typically the most vulnerable age group in this time.
Source: UCL
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