Smart watches could help to identify Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before key symptoms appear and a clinical diagnosis can be made, a study has found. Researchers analysed data collected by the devices over a seven-day period, measuring how fast people moved.
They found they could use artificial intelligence (AI) to accurately predict who would go on to later develop Parkinson’s disease. According to the experts, this could be used as a new screening tool for Parkinson’s, enabling the disorder to be detected at a much earlier stage than current methods allow.
Study leader Dr Cynthia Sandor, emerging leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff University, said: “With these results we could develop a valuable screening tool to aid in the early detection of Parkinson’s. This has implications both for research, in improving recruitment into clinical trials; and in clinical practice, in allowing patients to access treatments at an earlier stage, in future when such treatments become available.”
