Wearable Devices Effective in Tracking Parkinson's Disease Progression: Study
A recent study published in the npj Parkinson's Disease journal found digital measures from wearable devices to provide objective and sensitive real-world indicators of Parkinson's disease (PD) progression. Despite the scarcity of multicenter longitudinal studies on this topic, this research demonstrated significant differences in baseline gait, tremor, finger tapping and speech assessments between individuals with early, untreated PD and age-matched controls.
This research utilized a generalized additive model to flexibly analyze at-home data collected from commercially available smartwatches, smartphones and research-grade wearable sensors. The study included a total of 82 individuals with early, untreated PD and 50 age-matched controls with data collected until the participants began medication for PD.
The key findings over the 12-month period include significant declines in several gait measures, an increase in daily tremor proportion, modest changes in speech and minimal changes in psychomotor function. Also, as measured by smartwatches during in-clinic visits, the average arm swing decreased from 25.9 degrees at baseline to 19.9 degrees after one year that highlighted a marked decline in motor function (P=0.004).
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