Personal Devices to Monitor Parkinson's Symptoms

[FMundo]

I would like to know the extent to which PwPs are wearing devices to record tremors. Its not been mentioned here . . .

I participated in a "Pebble Watch" Clinical Trial run by Fox which was not successful. The idea was that the watch could detect and record tremors, store results on one's SmartPhone and periodically unload results to Fox. What my experience was that it was very difficult to keep the bluetooth link between watch and Smartphone connected. One other feature was the Pebble Watch could be programmed to issue an audio alarm at med time.

I find is surprising that the accurate recording of tremors, bradyinesia and dyskinesia, the timing of medication and the accurate accumulation of this type of information for neurologists isn't done widely. Particularly for PD where medications are so important and need to be adjusted and customized often.

There is an British firm Global Kinetics Corp which has the PKG system that does this (anyone have any experience with it?) Are there any firms that do this in the U.S.? It may be that technology isn't there yet (accelerometers)

[johntPM]

I built my own system out of an Arduino microcontroller, accelerometer and micro-sd card, plus a few hundred lines of code - total one off cost of the components on ebay about £20. It can accurately detect tremor, but it is less good at detecting bradykinesia than a simple side-to-side tap test. The problem is in software, not hardware.

For those of us on PD medication we have a nice test environment - ourselves. Our drug regimen gives us peaks and troughs in our symptoms throughout the day. Any useful system should be able to identify these changes.

My aim is to develop a device that, based on movements - not just time, indicates when the next dose is required. Given the time it takes to absorb our drugs, perhaps a hour, it needs to be smart enough to detect early indicators of wearing off.

John

[FMundo in reply to johntPM]

John,

Very interesting. In terms of "application" I was thinking that a monitoring device would be dispensed by a neurologist in situations where medications were being tried or adjusted with a patient. Rather than relying on "self reporting" the physician could have an accurate picture of when medication was taken, what sort of effect happened...

In other words the real "meat" of the product would be capturing a lot of data and then software that would reduce the data, presenting it graphically.

Possibly include monitoring autonomic functions (blood pressure and rate, sweating so that frequency, timing and severity of symptoms could also be evaluated (falls, orthostatic hypotension, REM behavior).

Frank

[alexask]

Personally I really wouldn't bother. I would suggest getting a fit bit, and friending some people and entering challenges. If your tremors bad your steps might go up. Otherwise try and do 13,000 steps a day. Win win.