Verily Study Watch
In a collaboration with the Michael J Fox Foundation, Verily will provide its Verily Study Watches to more than 800 U.S. participants in the MJFF-led Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI). The goal is to give researchers access to data to improve knowledge and understanding of the degenerative neurological condition and to support drug development for the disease. The study underscores the increasing use of wearables not only in the study of Parkinson’s disease but also potential applications for diagnosis of the condition and the impact of medication and other types of treatment.
PPMI is an $80-million longitudinal study using standardized methods to collect data and biosamples.
The types of data collected will include movement and different types of physiologic and environmental information nearly all day, every day, according to a description of the study. Verily and PPMI will make raw and curated data available to qualified researchers worldwide to drive independent studies. To date, PPMI data have been downloaded more than 1.7 million times.
In a discussion about the Verily study watch at the Health 2.0 conference last year, Brian Otis noted that it was designed to have a long battery life so that users would be able to wear it for longer amounts of time.
This isn’t the first Parkinson’s disease study Verily is supporting. Radboud University Medical Center, Radboud University and ParkinsonNet, and Verily launched a multi-year study in the Netherlands to explore factors that may impact the course of Parkinson’s disease. It will use sophisticated molecular analyses, advanced brain imaging, and wearable devices with sensors capable of measuring various types of data in the home, such as vital signs and activity levels, according to a description of the study on Verily’s website.
Wearables have generated much interest in the study of Parkinson’s disease, with researchers interested in applying sensors to gain more insight into the progression of the disease and how that differs between individuals. Wearables are being evaluated to track and assess individual’s activity levels, gait, tremor, and how they move against their baseline.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Australian medtech business Global Kinetics Corp. developed an FDA-approved device that evaluates and scores users for bradykinesia — a slowness of movement associated with Parkinson’s disease, dyskinesia — involuntary muscle movements, and tremor. The smartwatch is worn for seven days before it is returned to the clinician who uses it to downloaded data to get a snapshot of a patient’s condition.
A paper published in Frontiers in Neuroscience noted the potential power of wearables to help diagnose Parkinson’s disease. They could be used to collect data on body motion analysis, motor fluctuations, and home and long-term monitoring. They could also reduce the risk of misdiagnosis of the condition.
“The concept is to obtain an overview of the pathology at each stage of development, from the beginning of the disease to consider early symptoms, during disease progression with analysis of the most common disorders, and including management of the most complicated situations…”
A breakthrough for Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, short of a cure, will be information that can point to early detection in individuals before motor functions are affected, before the condition has damaged the brain. Although research scientists still haven’t found what they’re looking for, collecting more data and honing more effective ways to analyze it could help them unlock current knowledge gaps towards more effective diagnosis and early detection.
Photo: Verily
