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An important aspect of developing new potentially ‘curative’ treatments for Parkinson’s is our ability to accurately test and evaluate them. Our current methods of assessing Parkinson’s are basic at best (UPDRS and brain imaging), and if we do not improve our ability to measure Parkinson’s, many of those novel treatments will fail the clinical trial process and forever remain just “potentially” curative. Blood pressure issues are a common feature of Parkinson’s that does not get a lot of attention, but new technology could provide us with new insight. In today’s post, we look at new technology (under development) which could be applied to Parkinson’s, for the measuring and assessment of blood pressure, and we will look at how it could be used in certain clinical trials.
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Apple watch 4 (not an endorsement). Source: NewScientist
Late last year, the tech giant Apple released yet more new versions of their phones and watches (with much fanfare). And before we continue: this is not an advertisement or endorsement (unless Apple wants to talk to me???… ).
Of interest was the new version of their watch, which has a handy feature of being able to tell you when you have fallen over (a warning that one was about to fall would surely be more useful, no?).
Useful feature, but those buttons are rather close for anyone with a tremor. Source: ATT
And much was made about the ability of the watch to monitor heart rate, which is a very clever trick, particularly for people with atrial fibrillation (periods of abnormal activity in the atrials of the heart) – although there appear to a few issues to be ironed out (Click here to read more about this).
Source: USAtoday
Many of these smart watches and wrist band monitoring gadgets can now detect heart rate, but monitoring of blood pressure would actually be more useful for the Parkinson’s community.
What does blood pressure have to do with Parkinson’s?
The Science of Parkinson's 