Early detection of Parkinson's disease through automatic movement evaluation

Therapy for a patient with a neurological disease is more effective the earlier it is started. This also means a better quality of life for the patient and more effective health care for the country. Movement disorders may indicate several neurological diseases (including Parkinson's disease (PD)) before other diagnostic methods may reveal them. In this article a measurement technique is described that can be used to diagnose PD including the movement patterns to be analyzed, the necessary measurement set-up based on the PRIMAS precision motion analyzer, and the evaluation algorithms. The aim of the described work is to develop a screening test that could also be applied to patients already diagnosed as Parkinsonians to objectively measure the progress of the disease and/or the efficiency of the therapy.