PDapp: A Companion Mobile Application with Appcessories for Continuous Follow-up of Parkinson’s Disease Patients

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that impairs people’s mobility. Due to its erratic nature and complexity, the progression of the disease differs from person to person, making it difficult to keep track of the patient’s progress. These factors, together with the limited number of annual clinical appointments, create the need to have a tool that can help patients and healthcare professionals better manage Parkinson’s outside of the clinical environment. PDapp strives to address this need combining mHealth features with the capabilities of the iHandU appcessory, a novel and seamless wearable device designed to measure wrist rigidity, bradykinesia (slow movement), and tremor, thus enabling continuous effective follow-up, while connecting patients and clinicians remotely. The PDapp system is comprised of a mobile application where patients can manage their medication, self-perform various symptom tests, and maintain clinicians informed of relevant events; a specialized web dashboard for clinicians to monitor all their patient’s history and recent events; and a cloud database that exhibits existing data in real-time. The first prototype integrates all these components and provides a promising proof-of-concept that, with a few additions, can be a system that brings value to Parkinson’s management. This application design and functionalities were developed jointly with clinicians, addressing their problems and needs. The collected feedback was very positive stating that its usability and simplicity is completely suitable for patients to use. PDapp will introduce a complete and innovative methodology to follow-up PD patient’s disease progression and support clinicians during appointments and patients at home, guiding medication adjustment for better disease management. This system is intended as one more step to the PD mHealth ecosystem, improving follow-up and disease therapy yet reducing clinicians’ workload.