What is the new technique that could speed up the development of treatments for the disease
A revolutionary new technique has been developed by researchers from the University of Oxford that could speed up the development of treatments for the disease Parkinson’s. Specifically, the team tracked the quantitative progression of motor symptoms of the disease with the help of wearable sensors and machine learning algorithms. By studying more than 100 measurements, researchers were able to detect subtle changes in the movements of people with Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disease that affects 10 million people worldwide, noted in ERT.
The new methods described in this study, which was published in the journal npj Parkinson’s Disease, can be used by clinicians alongside more traditional clinical rating scales, not only to improve the accuracy of diagnosis, but also to to monitor the progression of Parkinson’s disease. The researchers stressed that the findings of their study could help scientists see whether new drugs and other treatments for Parkinson’s disease slow the progression of the disease.
The researchers placed six sensors on the chest, base of the spine, wrist and one leg of each participant, which monitored 122 physiological measurements. The team identified several dozen measurements as indicative of disease progression. Study participants visited the clinic every three months in order for the researchers to determine the shortest period of time in which they could detect disease progression. They found that disease progression could be detected in just 15 months with their technique.
“Being able to track the progression of motor symptoms in people with neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease is important for two main reasons: clinicians need to be confident in their assessment of disease progression in individual patients, and researchers who conducting clinical trials need to be able to measure how well therapeutic interventions are working,” study leader Chrystalina Antoniadis, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, told the New York Times.
“It is exciting. Now we hope to be able to say whether a drug is effective or not,” he noted.
The study authors concluded that the sensors proved more effective in monitoring disease progression “than conventionally used clinical rating scales.” Currently, clinicians use scoring systems to assess the core symptoms of people with Parkinson’s disease. However, the scientist points out, there is an element of subjectivity in the assessment and different clinicians may not provide identical scores. Another problem is that the scales are not evenly spaced – the difference between scores of 30 and 40 may not be the same as the difference between 40 and 50 for example. This means that detection of disease progression could be delayed.
After the publication of the results, Dr. Antoniadis and her team were inundated with messages from colleagues and the media asking if they had found a cure for Parkinson’s. She clarified, however, that this is a tool that could accelerate the development of treatments for the disease. The researcher said she is optimistic about the possibility of using such sensors to monitor other diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Doctors remain a vital part of the process, he added, with sensors supplementing their observations.
