Parkinson’s disease, (PD) a neurodegenerative disorder affects over six million people worldwide. Individuals can be affected by tremor, slowed movements, rigidity, and gait abnormalities. Chronic use common therapies to treat motor symptoms often cause a side effect known as dyskinesias, which are involuntary and irregular rapid movements.
To meet the needs of the Parkinson’s population, Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies (GLNT) has launched commercialization and clinical studies to expand their telemedicine Kinesia Home View™ by using real-time video conferencing to help individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Adding video conferencing will close the loop on clinical workflow by allowing clinicians to remotely discuss the results with patients and offer recommendations that can improve their quality of life.
The GLNT Kinesis HomeView system includes patient worn motion sensors and broadband integrated tablets that patients can use to follow video instruction and complete motor assessments. All of the data is transmitted remotely to a HIPAA compliant server and clinicians are able to log into a website to view symptom reports.
According to Joseph P. Giuffrida, PhD, GLNT President and Principal Investigator on the program, “Parkinson’s is an incredibly complex disease, so we are focused on developing remote monitoring technologies with visualization tools that can scale to the needs of patients with PD”.
Telemedicine technologies can contribute a great deal to the care of PD patients. The daily changes that patients exhibit in symptoms and severities can be difficult to assess in a short office visit but can be more easily captured by more continuous remote monitoring with patient worn sensors.
In addition, a large portion of the Parkinson’s population currently lacks access to expert care if they have mobility issues that limit travel or if they do not live near specialty centers. Linking patients with movement disorder specialists through web-based systems can be very helpful to the patient and improve accessibility.
The research and development for the project is being funded in part by a $1.2 million Phase II SBIR grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities within NIH. The technology is now under development at GLNT with clinical validation studies planned this fall at the University of Rochester, the University of Toledo, and internationally at Hospital Universitario de Burgos in Spain. GLNT is partnering with Vidyo Inc.to integrate their real-time video conferencing technology into the Kinesia system.
Go to www.glneurotech.com and to http://glneurotech.com/kinesia/homeview for more information.