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London: An Oxford University researcher and her team have shown that digital wearable devices can track the progression of Parkinson’s disease in an individual more effectively than human clinical observation can.
By tracking more than 100 metrics picked up by the devices, researchers were able to discern subtle changes in the movements of subjects with Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disease that afflicts 10 million people worldwide, according to a newly published paper.
The lead researcher emphasised that the latest findings were not a treatment for Parkinson’s. Rather, they are a means of helping scientists gauge whether novel drugs and other therapies for the disease are slowing its progression.
Wearable sensors tracked 122 physiological metrics of walkers, including the direction a toe moved during a step and the length and regularity of strides .Credit: Stephen Speranza/The New York Times
The sensors – six per subject, worn on the chest, at the base of the spine and one on each wrist and foot – tracked 122 physiological metrics. Several dozen metrics stood out as closely indicating the disease’s progression, including the direction a toe moved during a step and the length and regularity of strides.
“We have the biomarker,” said Chrystalina Antoniades, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford and the lead researcher on the paper, which was published earlier this month in the journal npj Parkinson’s Disease. “It’s super exciting.” She said researchers will now be able to tell if a drug was working.
Until now, Antoniades said, drug trials for Parkinson’s had relied on clinical assessment of whether a treatment was slowing the progression of the disease. But clinical observation can miss changes that happen day to day or that might not show up clearly in periodic visits to a doctor, she added.
The study’s authors concluded that the sensors proved more effective at tracking the progression “than the conventionally used clinical rating scales.”
Researchers said they haven’t found a cure for Parkinson’s, but will be able to tell if a drug is slowing the disease by studying metrics captured by wearable devices worn by the elderly.Credit: Bloomberg
To capture the wearer’s various movements, the sensors employed accelerometers and gyroscopes, that have become increasingly common in digital watches and smartphones. Together, these devices can measure a person’s direction, gait, regularity of movement and more.