Researchers at Polytechnic University of Catalonia, aka BarcelonaTECH, have developed and are testing the new REMPARK (Personal Health Device for the Remote and Autonomous Management of Parkinson’s Disease) mobile Parkinson’s monitoring system. The device is worn on the side of the torso in a little fanny pack. It measures the person’s motor status, providing the data in real-time while evaluating patients in a clinical setting or recording the data for later analysis while the person is at home or out and about doing daily tasks.

The goal of the project is to help get a sense of each person’s level of impairment throughout the day, hopefully relying less on self-reporting of symptoms and achieving both breadth and accuracy of results. This can in turn help to decide on the medication regimens that are more appropriate to each person’s needs.

This is the first time in Europe that work has been done with outpatient data on Parkinson’s disease: the system has been tested with 50 patients at home rather than in the laboratory. A total of more than 50 volunteers from Spain, Italy, Ireland and Israel have participated in REMPARK.

The project ends on April 30. The preliminary results are good and pilot tests have compared the data of volunteers from the three countries. These results will be presented in a workshop on 21 April in Madrid, at which the contribution of the medical, social and economic benefits will be assessed.

The application of REMPARK will increase the independence of patients; it will improve management of the disease and treatment and rehabilitation of patients, and will avoid hospital admissions due to falls or poor compliance with medication. If REMPARK is incorporated as a tool for diagnosis and monitoring of the disease, it will improve the healthcare system in Europe, provide higher quality and more personalised care for Parkinson’s disease patients, and increase the sustainability of the public resources used.

Source:Barcelona TECH