IoT Demo: Improving Parkinson's Disease Diagnosis using Remote Patient Monitoring

[bkooman]

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) uses digital technologies to collect medical and other forms of health data from individuals in one location and electronically transmit that information securely to health care providers in a different location for assessment and recommendations. Remote Patient Monitoring has benefits for both the patient as well as the healthcare systems relative to the following:

• Speed and Accuracy
• Faster Diagnosis and Treatment
• 24/7 monitored health
• Efficient and preventative diagnostics and treatments
• Reduce patient visits, organized health checkups and well manages healthcare
• Automatic alerts to the concerned family members/doctors/GP etc.

Parkinson's disease is a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement. Symptoms start gradually, sometimes starting with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand. Tremors are common, but the disorder also commonly causes stiffness or slowing of movement. Parkinson’s disease symptoms are most often charted using the MDS-UPDRS. Limitations of this approach include the subjective character of the assessments and a discrepant performance in the clinic compared to the home situation. Continuous monitoring using wearable devices is believed to eventually replace this golden standard, but measurements often lack a parallel ground truth or are only tested in lab settings. Through this demo we seek to add a quantitative aspect to monitoring Parkinson’s progression. If a patient is diagnosed with Parkinson's, this demo will help monitor the progression over time as well as what/if any effect medication is having on the patient.

Additional details about the demo can be found here or on GitLab.