Combining multitask learning and short time series analysis in Parkinson’s disease patients stratification

Abstract

Quality of life of patients with Parkinson’s disease degrades significantly with disease progression. This paper presents a step towards personalized medicine management of Parkinson’s disease patients, based on discovering groups of similar patients. Similarity is based on patients’ medical conditions and changes in the prescribed therapy when the medical conditions change. The presented methodology combines multitask learning using predictive clustering trees and short time series analysis to better understand when a change in medications is required. The experiments on PPMI (Parkinson Progression Markers Initiative) data demonstrate that using the proposed methodology we can identify some clinically confirmed patients’ symptoms suggesting medications change.