Spark: Personalized parkinson disease interventions through synergy between a smartphone and a smartwatch

Abstract

Parkinson disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder afflicting more than 1 million aging Americans, incurring $23 billion in annual medical costs in the U.S. alone. Approximately 90% Parkinson patients undergoing treatment have mobility related problems related to medication which prevent them doing their activities of daily living. Efficient management of PD requires complex medication regimens specifically titrated to individuals' needs. These personalized regimens are difficult to maintain for the patient and difficult to prescribe for a physician in the few minutes available during office visits. Diverging from current form of laboratory-ridden wearable sensor technologies, we have developed SPARK, a framework that leverages a synergistic combination of Smartphone and Smartwatch in monitoring multidimensional symptoms - such as facial tremors, dysfunctional speech, limb dyskinesia, and gait abnormalities. In addition, SPARK allows physicians to conduct effective tele-interventions on PD patients when they are in non-clinical settings (e.g., at home or work). Initial case series that use SPARK framework show promising results of monitoring multidimensional PD symptoms and provide a glimpse of its potential use in real-world, personalized PD interventions. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.