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(IANS)
According to new research, smartwatches could identify Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before the characteristic symptoms appear and a clinical diagnosis can be made.
Researchers from Cardiff University in the UK have shown that combining just one week’s smartwatch data with artificial intelligence (AI) can help identify people who would develop Parkinson’s disease around seven years old later.
They say it could be used as a new screening tool for Parkinson’s disease, which would allow the disorder to be detected at a much earlier stage than current methods allow.
“Data from smartwatches is easily accessible and inexpensive. Using this type of data, we would potentially be able to identify individuals in the very early stages of Parkinson’s disease within the general population,” said Dr Cynthia Sandor, from UK Dementia Research. Cardiff University Institute.
“We have shown here that a single week of captured data can predict events up to seven years in the future. With these results, we could develop a valuable screening tool to aid in the early detection of Parkinson’s disease” , she added.
Parkinson’s disease affects brain cells called dopaminergic neurons, located in an area of the brain known as the substantia nigra. It causes motor symptoms such as tremors, rigidity (stiffness) and slowness of movement.
By the time these hallmark symptoms of Parkinson’s disease begin to manifest and a clinical diagnosis can be made, more than half of the substantia nigra cells will already be dead.
Therefore, there is a need for cheap, reliable and easily accessible methods to detect early changes so that intervention can be performed before the disease causes significant brain damage, the researchers said.
They analyzed data collected from 103,712 UK participants who wore a medical-grade smartwatch for seven days between 2013 and 2016.
The devices measured the average acceleration, ie the speed of movement, continuously over a period of one week.
They compared data from a subset of participants who had previously been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease to another group who were diagnosed up to seven years after the smartwatch data was collected.
However, a limitation of the study is the lack of replication using another data source, as there are currently no other comparable datasets that would allow similar analysis. But a thorough assessment was done to mitigate any bias, Sandor said.
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The above article was published from a telegraphic source with minimal changes to the title and text.
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