A high-profile collaboration between Hollywood and high tech is taking a closer look at how wearable sensors might help people with Parkinson's disease.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation is teaming up with Intel to continue a project that earlier this year saw 16 Parkinson's patients equipped with smartwatches that recorded more than 300 data points per second. The information – amounting to one gigabyte of data per patient per day – was uploaded via smartphone to Intel's database and is now being analyzed, according to a BBC News story.
The next phase, to be carried out in Boston, New York and Israel, will equip patients with an app that allows them to record their feelings and medication. Researchers hope to combine data from the two stages to help providers develop better treatment plans for people with Parkinson's, a degenerative neurological disorder that affects some 5 million people around the globe.
While no known cause has been found for Parkinson's, researchers believe both genetic and environmental factors play a part. Symptoms can include tremors and other uncontrollable movements, slow movement, stiffness, impaired balance, a loss of smell and a gradual deterioration of speech and intellectual functions.
"This opportunity really will allow us the chance to uncover novel breakthroughs in Parkinson's disease by truly understanding how people are living with the disease today, how are they responding to treatments, what are their unmet needs," Todd Sherer, chief executive of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, told BBC News.
As evidence of the new nature of wearable technology, an official with the Parkinson's UK charity cautioned that the sensors would have to be subjected to careful analysis before measuring the value of the results.
"The potential of using new technology to aid clinical decision making and help people with Parkinson's to get the right treatment is exciting. However, it would be crucial that any device should demonstrate its effectiveness in robust clinical trials before becoming more widely available," Suma Surendranath, a professional engagement manager at the charity, told the BBC. "New technology that has been proven to accurately represent the complexity of symptoms of people with Parkinson's could be a very useful addition to the tools currently available to professionals."
Intel officials said they hope to develop algorithms that will enable healthcare providers to monitor Parkinson's patients' movements and sleep patterns in real-time via the wearable sensors.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation was launched in 2000 by Fox, a television and movie star who had been diagnosed with the disease. There was no indication that Fox would participate in this study.
