Smartwatches and AI enable detection of Parkinson’s

A pioneering study by the UK Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff University has revealed that smartwatches can detect Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before symptoms emerge. This could transform the way the disease is diagnosed and treated. The research involved analysing the smartwatch data of over 100,000 individuals using artificial intelligence (AI) and was recently published in the prominent scientific journal, Nature Medicine. The AI algorithm, designed to study users’ movement speeds, successfully predicted the onset of Parkinson’s disease.

The novel application of AI in healthcare is a rapidly evolving field. To identify potential Parkinson’s sufferers, the research team assessed users’ movement speed by analysing a week’s worth of smartwatch data. The AI application was then able to accurately predict who would go on to develop Parkinson’s disease.