PDTech – Empowering Parkinson’s patients to take control of their disease

Parkinson’s Disease, or PD, is the 2^nd most common age-related neurodegenerative disorder worldwide, after Alzheimer’s disease. There are 80,000 people with Parkinson’s disease in Australia, and 7-10 million people worldwide, and this number will only increase as our populations age.

Many Parkinson’s Disease patients experience a common problem – their medication wears off before it is time to take the next dose. By combining a mobile app with a wearable device, the technology can not only detect when patients have symptoms (such as tremor and dyskinesia) but also predict when will be the optimal time to take their next dose of medication. This allows patients to take an active role in managing their symptoms and develop a better connection with their healthcare team.

Wearable and mobile app

The wearable device monitors PD patient’s daily physical symptoms to generate a continuous stream of data. This data is used to calculate a weekly estimate of the disease’s progression using the Universal Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale, which is tracked and reported to the specialist prior to the patient’s next appointment.

The mobile phone app allows the PD patient to record daily physical and mental health status via easy Q & A sessions.

This is the only solution to date to combine a wearable device that objectively detects Parkinson’s symptoms with an app that reviews the patient’s subjective experience to provide a continuous monitoring of symptom development.

Over time machine learning predicts the optimum time for PD patients to take their medication to empower them to live a richer life.