Developing a Tool for Remote Digital Assessment of Parkinson's Disease

Abstract

Background: The natural fluctuation of motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) makes judgement of any change challenging and the use of clinical scales such as the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society (MDS)-UPDRS imperative. Recently developed commodity mobile communication devices, such as smartphones, could possibly be used to assess motor symptoms in PD patients in a convenient way with low cost. We provide the first report on the development and testing of stand-alone software for mobile devices that could be used to assess both tremor and bradykinesia of PD patients. Methods: We assessed motor symptoms with a custom-made smartphone application in 14 patients and compared the results with their MDS-UPDRS scores. Results: We found significant correlation between five subscores of MDS-UPDRS (rest tremor, postural tremor, pronation-supination, leg agility, and finger tapping) and eight parameters of the data collected with the smartphone. Conclusions: These results provide evidence as a proof of principle that smartphones could be a useful tool to objectively assess motor symptoms in PD in clinical and experimental settings.