Behind Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease is the second-most widespread neurodegenerative brain disorder in the world, and affects one out of every 100 people over the age of 60. After first being described in 1817 by Dr. James Parkinson, treatment and diagnosis have barely changed. Surgery, medications, and management techniques can help relieve symptoms, but as of yet, there is no cure.
In addition, the causes are not fully understood and appear to vary depending on the individual. But measuring it is often a slow process that doesn’t generate nearly enough data for researchers to make any significant progress. Luckily, Intel recently teamed up with the Michael J. Fox Foundation to and have proposed using wearable devices, coupled with cloud computing, to speed up the data collection process.
Due to the amount of variables involved in Parkinson’s symptoms — speed of movement, frequency and strength of tremors, how it affects sleep, and so on — the symptoms are difficult and tedious to track. Often, data is accrued through patient diaries, which is a slow process. Intel’s plan, which will involve the deployment of smartwatches, can not only increase the rate of data collection, but detect a much higher volume of variables and frequency than a personal diary could.
It is hopes that they will be able to record 300 observations per second, thus creating a massive amount of data per patient. The use of wearables means that the data can even be reported and monitored by researchers and doctors in real time. Later this year, the MJFF is even planning on launching a mobile app that adds medication intake monitoring and allows patients to record how they feel, making personal diaries easier to create and share.
In order to collect and manage the data, it will be uploaded to a cloud storage data platform, and has the ability to notice changes in the data in real time. This allows researchers to track the changes in patient symptoms and share from a large field of data to better spot common patterns and symptoms. In the end, its not quite a cure, but it should help speed up the process of finding one.
Wearable technology, cloud computing and wireless data monitoring are the hallmarks of personalized medicine, which appears to be the way of the future. And while the concept of metadata and keeping medical information in centralized databases may make some nervous (as it raises certain privacy issues), keeping it anonymous and about the symptoms should lead to a speedy development of treatments and ever cures.
And be sure to check out this video from the intelnewsroom, explaining the collaboration in detail: