Intel Works With Michael J Fox Foundation on Wearable Devices For Parkinson's Disease

Intel is on the cusp of something special with their wearable technology that is launching soon with fitness technology wired into bands and watches to wear easily on the wrist. Now this is being taken a big step further with new plans to use the nascent technology to help study the effects of neurodegenerative disease as experienced by Parkinson's disease patients.

Intel announced on Wednesday that they have partnered up with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, the non-profit organization launched in 2000 by popular actor and Parkinson's sufferer, Michael J. Fox. The actor has been dealing with the effects of the disease since 1991.

Intel Hardware & Software Solution

The idea is to put together Intel know-how with hardware and software via a mobile app and their new line of wearable mobile devices. The Intel data collection is supposed to make monitoring real-time patient experiences more easy which can track the changes in movement and behavior from Parkinson's patients with a view to helping develop new drugs and other solutions in the future.

Improved Monitoring

The intention is to take advantage of sophisticated monitoring sensors and technology that has not been possible to use before to advance the understanding of how the Parkinson's disease affects those afflicted. The multi-phase study will use the latest open-source technology in the hope that new discovering and approaches can be found along the way.

What Parkinson's Does To An Otherwise Healthy Body

Parkinson's disease causes progressive lack of motor control of body while the mind stays as active as ever. This can lead to a gradual loss of functionality in daily life including extreme shaking and tremors, plus loss of facial expression movement.

Data science has not been able to be used in quite this way, on a scale, to help provide new clues and insights into the minutia of the disease progression. Prior to this, even though the disease was first diagnosed in 1817 by Dr. James Parkinson, the ability to more accurately examine the disease has not been possible until now.

Study Funding from Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research

The Michael J. Fox Foundation are providing funding to pay for the wearables to be supplied to Parkinson's patients in the multi-phase study conducted with the help of the Intel Corporation. The patients in the medical study will include those who are not resident in hospitals and usually are excluded from medical studies for this reason. The study will be agnostic with different types of wearable devices used in order to provide impartial data.

Intel Big Data Group

Intel's Big Data Solutions group are working on the wearable devices to determine how to best pull out useful medical data in real-time that can help with these kinds of studies. Whilst Apple has an upcoming wearable product to be launched and Google have their Wear product brand already, Intel is looking more on the data side with open-source analytical software which is capable of finding patterns in data within a group of patients.

The first phase of the study will just include wearable technology, but the follow-up phase will include a mobile app to collect anonymous patient information like their course of medication and their mood at different times of the day.