Online AI-Based Test for Parkinson's Disease Severity Shows Promising Results

An artificial intelligence (AI) tool developed by researchers at the University of Rochester can help people with Parkinson's disease remotely assess the severity of their symptoms within minutes. A study in npj Digital Medicine describes the new tool, which has users tap their fingers 10 times in front of a webcam to assess motor performance on a scale of 0-4.

Doctors often have patients perform simple motor tasks to assess movement disorders and rate the severity using guidelines such as the Movement Disorder Society Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS). The AI model provides a rapid assessment using the MDS-UPDRS guidelines, automatically generating computational metrics such as speed, amplitude, frequency, and period that are interpretable, standardized, repeatable, and consistent with medical guidebooks. It uses those attributes to classify the severity of tremors.

The finger-tapping task was performed by 250 global participants with Parkinson’s disease and the AI system's ratings were compared with those by three neurologists and three primary care physicians. While expert neurologists performed slightly better than the AI model, the AI model outperformed the primary care physicians with UPDRS certification.

The AI-based Parkinson's disease severity test generates computational metrics such as speed, amplitude, frequency, and period, and uses those attributes to classify the severity of tremors. (Photo provided)

"These findings could have huge implications for patients who have difficulty gaining access to neurologists, getting appointments, and traveling to the hospital," says Ehsan Hoque, an associate professor in Rochester's Department of Computer Science and co-director of the Rochester Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory. "It's an example of how AI is being gradually introduced into health care to serve people outside of the clinic and improve health equity and access."

The study was led by Md. Saiful Islam, a Google PhD fellow and a graduate student in computer science advised by Hoque. The team of computer scientists collaborated with several members of the Medical Center's Department of Neurology, including associate professor Jamie Adams; Ray Dorsey, the David M. Levy Professor of Neurology; and associate professor Ruth Schneider.

The researchers say their method can be applied to other motor tasks, which opens the door to evaluating other types of movement disorders such as ataxia and Huntington's disease. The new Parkinson's disease assessment is available online, though the researchers caution that it reflects an emerging technology and at this early stage should not be considered, on its own and without a physician’s input, as a definitive measure of the presence or severity of the disease.

Islam MS, Rahman W, Abdelkader A, Lee S, Yang PT, Purks JL, Adams JL, Schneider RB, Dorsey ER, Hoque E.
Using AI to measure Parkinson's disease severity at home.
NPJ Digit Med. 2023 Aug 23;6(1):156. doi: 10.1038/s41746-023-00905-9

Most Popular Now

AI also Assesses Dutch Mammograms Better…

AI is detecting tumors more often and earlier in the Dutch breast cancer screening program. Those tumors can then be treated at an earlier stage. This has been demonstrated by...

RSNA AI Challenge Models can Independent…

Algorithms submitted for an AI Challenge hosted by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) have shown excellent performance for detecting breast cancers on mammography images, increasing screening sensitivity while...

AI could Help Emergency Rooms Predict Ad…

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help emergency department (ED) teams better anticipate which patients will need hospital admission, hours earlier than is currently possible, according to a multi-hospital study by the...

Head-to-Head Against AI, Pharmacy Studen…

Students pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy degree routinely take - and pass - rigorous exams to prove competency in several areas. Can ChatGPT accurately answer the same questions? A new...

NHS Active 10 Walking Tracker Users are …

Users of the NHS Active 10 app, designed to encourage people to become more active, immediately increased their amount of brisk and non-brisk walking upon using the app, according to...

Unlocking the 10 Year Health Plan

The government's plan for the NHS is a huge document. Jane Stephenson, chief executive of SPARK TSL, argues the key to unlocking its digital ambitions is to consider what it...

AI can Find Cancer Pathologists Miss

Men assessed as healthy after a pathologist analyses their tissue sample may still have an early form of prostate cancer. Using AI, researchers at Uppsala University have been able to...

How AI could Speed the Development of RN…

Using artificial intelligence (AI), MIT researchers have come up with a new way to design nanoparticles that can more efficiently deliver RNA vaccines and other types of RNA therapies. After training...

AI, Full Automation could Expand Artific…

Automated insulin delivery (AID) systems such as the UVA Health-developed artificial pancreas could help more type 1 diabetes patients if the devices become fully automated, according to a new review...

MIT Researchers Use Generative AI to Des…

With help from artificial intelligence, MIT researchers have designed novel antibiotics that can combat two hard-to-treat infections: drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae and multi-drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Using generative AI algorithms, the research...

AI Hybrid Strategy Improves Mammogram In…

A hybrid reading strategy for screening mammography, developed by Dutch researchers and deployed retrospectively to more than 40,000 exams, reduced radiologist workload by 38% without changing recall or cancer detection...

Penn Developed AI Tools and Datasets Hel…

Doctors treating kidney disease have long depended on trial-and-error to find the best therapies for individual patients. Now, new artificial intelligence (AI) tools developed by researchers in the Perelman School...