Watch it: Smartwatches are going head-to-head with traditional timepiece makers in the luxury market
(Picture: Parko Polo)More than 100,000 patients with Parkinson’s disease will be prescribed smartwatches as part of a new treatment programme on the NHS.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the treatment watchdog, has recommended the use of five devices which could improve the quality of life for those living with the condition.
Parkinson’s is an incurable condition that affects the brain, resulting in movement problems and loss of coordination. Symptoms include tremor, involuntary movement and slowness.
It is caused by a loss of cells in the brain that are responsible for producing dopamine, which helps to control and coordinate body movements.
The KinesiaU watch will measure the severity of tremors, slowness and involuntary movement and pass this data on to a healthcare professional – helping to free up GP appointments. An app accompanying the device will also offer patients customisable exercise and medication diaries.
The Personal KinetiGraph (PKG) watch, worn by patients for six days, will collect data on tremors and immobility before producing a report on the severity of symptoms for doctors.
And a waist-worn device named STAT-ON will measure how a patient walks as well as their energy expenditure and posture. It can also register when medication has been taken with up to 10 alarms per day to act as prompts.
Nice’s expert panel said the information provided by the devices “may more accurately record a person’s symptoms than a clinical assessment during in-person appointments”.
This could help to “inform medication decisions and follow up treatment such as physiotherapy”, they added.
Katherine Fletcher, from Parkinson’s UK, told The Times that the devices would help as annual appointments “only provide a snapshot of someone’s condition”.
She said: “Adding additional ways to measure and monitor an individual’s symptoms could really help build a round the clock picture of symptoms and improve treatment and care.”
The NHS has already begun the collection of data on one of the devices and hundreds has already begun as part of a scheme that could be rolled out to 120,000 Parkinson’s patients across the UK.
Mark Chapman, interim director of Medical Technology at Nice, said: “Providing wearable technology to people with Parkinson’s disease could have a transformative effect on their care and lead to changes in their treatment taking place more quickly.”
But he added there was “uncertainty in the evidence” on the five technologies and more data would be needed to reach conclusions about their efficacy.
A consultation has begun on Nice’s recommendations and will last until October 18.
