Track Myself:a smartphone-based tool for monitoring Parkinson’s disease

Abstract. Parkinson disease (PD) is a fast-spreading neurological disorder that affects millions of people worldwide, it hinders its patients from performing daily activities with ease. Its symptoms may vary within hours and progress differently for each patient, and usually assessed clinically every six months. It requires customized treatment plan for each patient and demands adherence of patients to complex medication regimens. The goal of this thesis is to design, implement, and test a mobile app named “Track Myself” that can help people with Parkinson’s disease (PwP) resolve these issues. The app has two components that help PwP assess their symptoms level regularly, the first component is an accelerometer-based game that detects the patient’s hand movement and calculate a score for its accuracy, the second component is a self-report symptoms survey filled by the patient every day to rate their severity level. A medication journal is implemented in the app for the patients to log their medication intakes regularly, which are prescribed by their doctors using the app as well, this help keep track of the medication history and calculate the patient’s medication adherence. The app also contains a dashboard made of three charts, representing the medication time-adherence, symptom surveys, and game scores of the patient. The purpose of this dashboard is to help the doctors form relationships between the data in the charts and determine the best future treatment plan. The app was tested for two weeks by ten healthy participants, they were asked to act in the persona of a PD patient and perform certain tasks, where information about the disease and experiences of actual patients were provided for these participants. A questionnaire was sent to the participants after the study, it consists of open-ended questions, rating statements, as well as a validated mobile health app usability questionnaire (MAUQ). The participants rated the app as easy to use for PwP in most features with mean score of 6.04/7 and perceived the app as very useful in helping PwP with mean score of 6.18/7

Recent advances in the role of rehabilitative therapies for Parkinson’s disease: A literature review

Regardless of medical therapies and surgical interventions for Parkinson’s disease, patients develop progressive disability. The role of therapies is to maximize functional ability and minimize secondary complications through movement rehabilitation within a context of education and support for the whole person. The overall aim is to optimize independence, safety and wellbeing, thereby enhancing quality of life. Trials have shown that physiotherapy has short-term benefits in Parkinson’s disease. However, which physiotherapy intervention are most effective remains unclear. This article provides a guidance framework rather than a ’recipe’ for treatment. This review shows that a wide range of rehabilitative therapy interventions to treat Parkinson’s disease have been tested. There is a need for more specific trials with improved treatment strategies to underpin the most appropriate choice of therapy intervention and the outcomes measured. According to research in the literature, this review is of particular importance because it discusses many rehabilitation therapies for patients with Parkinson\u27s disease in a single paper, for the first time. The aim of this review article is to evaluate the effectiveness of one therapy intervention compared with a second approach in patients with Parkinson’s disease

Diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease Based on Voice Signals Using SHAP and Hard Voting Ensemble Method

Background and Objective: Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common progressive neurological condition after Alzheimer's, characterized by motor and non-motor symptoms. Developing a method to diagnose the condition in its beginning phases is essential because of the significant number of individuals afflicting with this illness. PD is typically identified using motor symptoms or other Neuroimaging techniques, such as DATSCAN and SPECT. These methods are expensive, time-consuming, and unavailable to the general public; furthermore, they are not very accurate. These constraints encouraged us to develop a novel technique using SHAP and Hard Voting Ensemble Method based on voice signals. Methods: In this article, we used Pearson Correlation Coefficients to understand the relationship between input features and the output, and finally, input features with high correlation were selected. These selected features were classified by the Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM), Gradient Boosting, and Bagging. Moreover, the Hard Voting Ensemble Method was determined based on the performance of the four classifiers. At the final stage, we proposed Shapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to rank the features according to their significance in diagnosing Parkinson's disease. Results and Conclusion: The proposed method achieved 85.42% accuracy, 84.94% F1-score, 86.77% precision, 87.62% specificity, and 83.20% sensitivity. The study's findings demonstrated that the proposed method outperformed state-of-the-art approaches and can assist physicians in diagnosing Parkinson's cases

The role of the rehabilitation in subjects with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy: a narrative review

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder due to the deposition of abnormal proteins in neurons of the basal ganglia that limit motor ability producing disability and reduced quality of life. So far, no pharmacologic therapy has been developed and the treatment remains symptomatic. The aim of the present study was to investigate systematically literature, and to determine the types and effects of rehabilitative interventions. A search of all studies was conducted in MEDLINE/PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, CINAHL and EMBASE. Twelve studies were individuated including 6 case reports, 3 case series, one case control, one quasi-RT crossover study and one RCT, with 88 patients investigated overall. Rehabilitative interventions varied in type, number, frequency and duration of sessions. The most commonly used clinical measures were Progressive Supranuclear Palsy-Rating Scale (PSP-RS) and Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). Physical exercises were the main rehabilitative strategy but were associated with other interventions and rehabilitative devices, in particular treadmill and robot-assisted gait training. All studies showed an improvement of balance and gait impairment with a reduction of falls after rehabilitation treatment. Due to poor methodological quality and the variability of rehabilitative approach with different and variable strategies, there was no evidence of the effectiveness of a specific rehabilitation intervention in PSP. Despite this finding, rehabilitation might improve balance and gait, thereby reducing falls in PSP subjects

A phenomenological study of partners of people with Parkinson\u27s disease who demonstrate communication changes

Parkinson\u27s disease is a common progressive neurological illness for which there is no known cure. While the cardinal signs are tremor, bradykinesia or slowness of movement, muscle rigidity and postural instability (Jahanshahi & Marsden, 1998, p.3) the patient may face an extended number of years experiencing all, or any combination of, the many other manifestations of the disease process. These manifestations include changes to various aspects of communication including loss of voice volume, diminished body language and loss of facial expression. All of these affect both verbal and non verbal communication. Given the progressive nature of Parkinson\u27s disease the patient may often require both physical and emotional support for many years. The long term partner or spouse often provides this care and support. There is a paucity of literature discussing the impact of communication changes or difficulties on the partner or spouse. Thus a study into the life experiences of the partners of people with Parkinson’s disease who demonstrate communication problems is needed. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of partners of people with this neurological diagnosis and whose communication is affected. A phenomenological approach was utilised to explore the impact of communication changes on the partner of a person with Parkinson\u27s disease. Five participants took part in his study. Four of the participants responded to an advertisement placed in the Western Australian Parkinson’s Association newsletter. The remaining participant volunteered to be part of the study while she and her husband were on holiday in Perth, Western Australia from overseas. All of the participants were female and their husbands had been diagnosed with Parkinson\u27s disease for extended periods of time, ranging from five to fifteen years. In depth interviews were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. The data from these interviews were analysed using the method described by Colaizzi (1978). Data were described and interpreted and common themes were extrapolated and analysed. The three major themes emerging from the interviews were: The Partner/Carer Interface, Emotional Turmoil and Ways of Coping. The Partner/Carer Interface is made up of three sub themes, ‘life before diagnosis\u27\u27, the point of diagnosis and sharing the disease.\u27\u27 The second theme, Emotional Turmoil, includes the sub themes confronting the physical, \u27\u27the conditions always wins” and “social isolation”. The third theme addresses the skills necessary to cope with the future, or Ways of Coping. This theme encapsulates minor themes of \u27\u27knowing the beast , sharing the burden”, and finally preparing for the road ahead”. Based upon study findings recommendations are made in relation to care provision, patient education and community support. The need for further research has been identified, specifically into the diverse gender issues related to communication and the role of care giver. In addition the need for health professionals with an extensive knowledge base of this neurological condition has been identified as essential for quality nursing management