Multimodal remote diagnosis and monitoring of Parkinson´s disease and essential tremor

Important results from the project

We partially met our initial objectives. In particular, we have introduced a technology to measure and analyze tremor in people with Parkinson´s disease or Essential Tremor. This technology has met with great interest from pharmaceutical and technology companies. As a result, we are planning several joint follow-up projects. Work on describing voice and gait patterns in these patients is still ongoing and we see good opportunities to link these analyses into the planned studies.

Expected long term effects

We anticipate that our ongoing discussions with industrial partners will lead to a collaborative project where we can contribute with our expertise in measuring and interpreting tremor - as well as other aspects of movement disorders (gait/balance problems, voice problems, etc.). The confirmed interest in our technologies, together with the new creation of a movement laboratory at Lund University (in which we are involved), makes us attractive to the pharmaceutical/technology industry.

Approach and implementation

We had planned to conduct all sub-studies in parallel. However, considering patient recruitment (and because the establishment of the motion lab in Lund was delayed), we instead prioritised the study of tremor. Through a fruitful collaboration between clinic, companies and academia, we developed a technology relatively quickly that has proven to have great potential for the development of medical devices and drugs, and for technological support in everyday life.