This Device Tracks Parkinson’s by Watching You Walk Around at Home
For the more than 10 million people living with Parkinson’s, tracking the progression of the disease is vital to letting doctors know whether patients are responding well to medicine, whether symptoms are becoming more severe, and how the disease is impacting everyday life.
The problem for many patients, though, is that they can’t always get to a hospital or doctor’s office easily—whether it be because they live too far away or their illness prevents them from traveling easily. That’s why a team of MIT researchers engineered a small device roughly the size of a Wi-Fi router that can wirelessly monitor patients in their home.
In a previous study, the device demonstrated the ability to detect Parkinson’s disease by simply “listening” to people sleeping—thanks to an AI that researchers trained to analyze the breathing patterns of a person as they snooze.
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