Chip maker Intel and the Michael J. Fox Foundation are teaming up on a project that will use wearable devices and data analytics to monitor treatment of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, the latter has announced. The partnership will involve Intel hardware and software and a data analysis platform. Fox created the foundation in 2000 following his Parkinson's diagnosis in 1991.
"Nearly 200 years after Parkinson's disease was first described by Dr. James Parkinson in 1817, we are still subjectively measuring Parkinson's disease largely the same way doctors did then," Todd Sherer, CEO of the foundation, said in a statement. "Data science and wearable computing hold the potential to transform our ability to capture and objectively measure patients' actual experience of disease, with unprecedented implications for Parkinson's drug development, diagnosis and treatment."
The project will involve patients nationwide and use a variety of devices, not all Intel products, to track and monitor patient activity. Intel's Big Data Solutions group will mine the data in an effort to boost research and attain a clearer view of the progression of the disease. Announcement