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According to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, connected watches could diagnose Parkinson’s disease seven days before the first symptoms appear.
Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the destruction of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra of the brain. These neurons are involved in the control of movements. The main symptoms of the disease are slowness in movement, rigidity and tremor at rest.
Signs of slow movement in daily tasks
People with Parkinson’s would show signs of slowness of movement years before the diagnosis is made, and not just in their walking speed. In particular, they would be slower in carrying out daily tasks such as cleaning, making the bed or getting up to make coffee.
This is revealed by a study carried out on more than 100,000 people in the United Kingdom, between 2013 and 2016. The results, published in the journal NatureMedicineclaim that wearing a connected watch would make it possible to identify the people most at risk of developing the disease, well before the onset of the first symptoms.
Detectable slowness several years before the diagnosis
Participants were asked to wear a smartwatch-like tracker for a week. During these seven days, the connected object recorded the average speed of the movements performed daily by the participants.
After analyzing the data recorded by the tracker, the researchers found that people who had developed the disease performed their daily movements more slowly a few years before diagnosis, compared to people who had not developed the disease.
Identify patients at an early stage
For the researchers, this discovery could make it possible to develop a screening tool for Parkinson’s disease for those most at risk. “By using this kind of data, we could potentially identify patients at a very early stage.”, enthuses Dr. Cynthia Sandor, co-author of the study.
The latter could then integrate clinical trials at a stage where the disease has not yet destroyed a large number of brain cells. This would make it possible to assess the effectiveness of new treatments in preventing the destruction of brain cells and, who knows, stopping the progression of the disease.
To date, there is no preventive or curative treatment for Parkinson’s disease. Antiparkinsonian treatments can improve the quality of life of patients without stopping the progression of the disease.