9 years of my side to side tap test results

[johntPM]

For the last 9 years I have been measuring my side to side tap test times. This is an update.

For details of how to do this test see:

healthunlocked.com/cure-par...

There's all sorts of statistical issues which could be addressed in analysing the data, but I think, the results show:

- for the period 8 to 15 years post diagnosis, a gradual improvement shown by an increase in the number of taps. This may to due to a training effect.

- for the period 15 years to the present, a decline in performance.

- for the whole time the weaker hand (right) has been catching up with the better hand (left). In fact what got me to post today was the rare event yesterday of a right hand score higher than the left hand score.

John

[pmmargo]

You might want to use a better fitting technique since the line fit is being thrown off by outliers. Perhaps a filter of some window length producing the median over the window would produce a nice smooth curve showing your conclusions. Or exclude the data beyond some quantile from the linear fit. Cool data ...thanks for sharing it!

[johntPM in reply to pmmargo]

You are right. If I were to take it further, I'd adopt measures like you suggest.

More data can be found at:

parkinsonsmeasurement.org/P...

[Godiv in reply to pmmargo]

Wow! Listen to you.

[pmmargo]

Sorry I guess I got carried away.

[johntPM in reply to pmmargo]

There's nothing to apologize for: you made some good points.

[Gioc]

Hi John, I have started using your application since I will soon start a new protocol based on physical exercise and vitamins. I find it very useful for measuring a significant change along with other parameters. I see that you are doing very well, even in off time! 👏 I have not yet figured out how to get a graph like yours, but I see that the history is available so I will elaborate one.

Thank you very much !

Ciao from Italy 🇮🇹. Gio

[DeanGreen]

Thanks for sharing your data. It is quite interesting! I have done similar PD monitoring by rotating a tennis ball for 30 sec to get an RPM value. Just like your results, I have observed my right hand RPM values approaching left hand RPMs (I'm left dominant PD) over the years. But what I found most interesting is that the severity of PD symptoms tend to loosely correlate with the seasons. Can you apply curve smoothing techniques such as "running average" or "running median" or others to your data?