Michael J. Fox Smart Watches Are Right On Time For Parkinson's Breakthrough
Source: Forbes
Leo King
Back To The Future actor Michael J. Fox could make a major breakthrough in the monitoring and treatment of Parkinsons disease as his foundation begins equipping patients with Intel Basis smart watches and a specially developed app that can track peoples movements and how they manage the condition.
The technology has the potential to utterly transform Parkinsons research : patients often note how occasional doctors appointments do not tell the whole story as their conditions can vary widely over the course of any single day. Manual note taking throughout the year can also be difficult for doctors to analyze, and frustrating for the patients. Fox said last night that proper data analysis was needed to track patient health and medication response on an accurate, ongoing basis, adding that in order to achieve this, wearable smart devices should be used.
The answers are within us, Fox told USA Today after announcing that his foundation would develop an app to help doctors further understand the disease, by monitoring factors such as gait, fluidity of movement and tremors. We just need to find a way to let people into our brains both literally and figuratively, to help us figure this out.
The news has been given a cautious welcome by other Parkinsons researchers, who frequently grapple with the complexity of the disease but are keen to see how the enormous volumes of data from wearable devices could provide useful information if well analyzed. Parkinsons is a neurodegenerative brain disease second only to Alzheimers in worldwide prevalence, and it is diagnosed in around 60,000 Americans per year.
FULL story at link. Video below.
Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/leoking/2014/08/14/michael-j-fox-smart-watches-are-right-on-time-for-parkinsons-breakthrough/
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justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)eggplant
(3,915 posts)shenmue
(38,506 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,458 posts)Thanks for the thread, Omaha Steve.
area51
(11,928 posts)could also benefit research into Essential Tremor.