Research has shown that smartwatches can diagnose Parkinson’s disease as much as seven years earlier.

Smartwatches are gaining more attention as they discover that they might be tools for early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative movement disorder.

Euronews reported on the fifth (local time) that the British Dementia Research Institute and Cardiff University published a study within the recent issue of Nature that artificial intelligence (AI) in smartwatches can predict Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative brain disease through which brain neurons that secrete dopamine mandatory for exercise are step by step lost, leading to slow gait or trembling muscles. It progresses over a protracted time period, and when diagnosed, it is commonly in a severe state through which many brain cells have already been damaged.

The researchers used an AI model to research the movement speeds of 103,712 Brits wearing smartwatches over seven randomly chosen days between 2013 and 2016. With data tracking movement speed over every week, the AI ​​was in a position to discover patients who had already been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, in addition to those within the early stages of the disease that had not yet been diagnosed.

The researchers were also in a position to pinpoint when a clinical diagnosis could be made, with early onset symptoms identified as much as seven years prior to current time.

Actually, Parkinson’s is taken into account a difficult disease to diagnose resulting from the complexity of the disease. Specifically, it’s true that diagnosis is difficult in that symptoms don’t appear steadily and require long-term follow-up.

The researchers hope that this technology will probably be used as a screening tool for early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. But he added that more research is required to substantiate how accurate this finding is, comparing it with other data collected around the globe.

Professor Cynthia Sander, lead researcher, said: “A smartwatch, worn by around 30% of the UK population, could provide a reasonable and reliable option to discover early-stage Parkinson’s disease.”

“We have now shown that only one week of knowledge can predict future events as much as seven years,” he said. “It will improve patient recruitment in clinical trials while giving patients access to therapies developed in the long run.” said.

Reporter Park Chan cpark@aitimes.com