EA smartwatch logs steps and heart rate. However, it can also help to diagnose Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before the onset of the first symptoms. This is the conclusion of a study by the University of Cardiff. Scientists from the UK Dementia Research Institute and the Neuroscience and Mental Health Innovation Institute used artificial intelligence to study the movement speed of around 100,000 British smartwatch wearers.
Parkinson’s patients moved much more slowly during all everyday activities than a healthy comparison group. This was especially true for those who were diagnosed years later with the disease. The data comes from the UK Biobank platform, through which more than half a million Britons make their health records available anonymously for research purposes. The disease gradually kills nerve cells in certain areas of the brain. Typical symptoms are tremors, muscle stiffness and lack of movement.
Through their work, digital markers for the early diagnosis of Parkinson’s have been identified for the first time, says Ann-Kathrin Schalkamp, PhD student in bioinformatics at Cardiff University. The German scientist developed the AI tool for the study as part of her doctoral thesis. Very slow and difficult movements are therefore a symptom of a number of diseases, including osteoarthritis, an incurable inflammation of the joints. The scientists working with Schalkamp therefore also applied their AI tool to these diseases in order to rule out confusion with Parkinson’s. The tool can even filter out future Parkinson’s diseases better than other methods that are based, for example, on genetics or blood counts.
A medical smartwatch called Axivity AX3 was used for the Cardiff study. The research team was not afraid of errors that could falsify the measurement, such as excessive movement recording due to the tremor. The tremors that are characteristic of Parkinson’s had no influence on the data, says Schalkamp.
#study #Smartwatch #detects #early #signs #Parkinsons