Amy Mitchell-Whittington
Life Tracker is hoped to improve the lives of those with neurological conditions. Photo: Supplied
Queensland researchers have created a smartphone app that could improve the treatment and management plan for those living with neurological conditions such as Parkinson's.
Life Tracker is being piloted within Parkinson's support groups to try to give individuals and their medical teams a better indication of how their condition changes on a daily basis.
Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurological condition that affects about 70,000 Australians.
The underlying cause of Parkinson's symptoms relates to a decline in the production of a brain chemical called dopamine and while it has been considered a "movement disorder", it also has non-motor symptoms such as depression, pain, memory and sleep problems.
Queensland Brain Institute researcher and occupational therapist Dr Jacki Liddle has been working alongside other UQ researchers and the CSIRO Australian Ehealth Research Centre to develop a smartphone app that tracks an individual's movements, records speech and monitors sleep patterns.
We had this issue when we were working with people with Parkinson's that their condition changes a lot and when they needed to go and see the doctor, which may have been every six months, it is not a good indication for how things are for them at home," Dr Liddle said.
Jacki Liddle and her team created Life Tracker. Photo: Supplied
We had this issue when we were working with people with Parkinson's that their condition changes a lot and when they needed to go and see the doctor, which may have been every six months, it is not a good indication for how things are for them at home," Dr Liddle said.
"We needed to find a way of checking in with them, how their symptoms were going, how the medication is going, their movement, their state from home."
Dr Liddle said people living with Parkinson's often found it hard to paint a detailed picture of their daily lives to their doctors.
"They (people living with Parkinson's) might not notice when they are having a tremor except for when they went to do something and it was difficult," she said.
"Some of these things they might not notice and that is where this monitoring of symptoms of movement without them having to actively do it can be useful."
Dr Liddle said Life Tracker could also help tailor medical treatments for Parkinson's, including dosage amounts and frequency.
"One of the elements of Parkinson's is how it fluctuates, so how you are at 10am is not the same as how you are at 2pm," Dr Liddle said.
"The medication is really tricky to get right. If it is too much they get really difficult side-effects, if it is too little they get all the symptoms that are difficult to deal with.
"The dopamine medication wears off, so people with severe Parkinson's could be taking it every three hours so it is quite important that they get it at the right time."
Dr Liddle said the app could also help those living with Parkinson's better manage their activities.
She said pilot programs in support groups for Parkinson's had been well received.
"There are many biases or stereotypes that people have of people living with neurological conditions, particularly older people not wanting to use technology," she said.
"That might be true for some individuals of any age but when we went along to the support groups there were people there tweeting about various things and were much faster than me so I think, OK, let's not be a barrier for someone using something.
"We have had a lot of people say, 'Well, if I can access the information and send it to my doctor then it is worth it for me'."
Harlie
Dr Liddle said her team was also working on a chat-bot called Harlie (Human and Robot Language Interaction Experiment), designed for chatting.
The Harlie chat app. Photo: Supplied
Dr Liddle said those living with neurological conditions such as Parkinson's disease and dementia often found it hard to choose the right words or sometimes lost their train of thought mid-sentence.
"We wanted to develop a way people could have a conversation without needing another person to have a conversation, that is where the chat-bot comes in," she said.
"We were keen to get people's conversations because it gets their voice recorded but it also tells us some of these things about their thinking and how easy they can find words.
"We decided to take it to older people's groups – we went to knitting groups and men's sheds and took Harlie and they had a go.
"We had people who never owned a phone but could have a go at a smartphone and have a chat with it."
The app is for people living with specific neurological conditions and clinicians to better understand the impact these conditions have on speech and communication, however it could be tailored for more widespread use in the future.
"We got really interesting suggestions ... one woman said she was awake at 4am and never had anyone to talk to, someone else had a relative who had memory problems and has very repetitive conversations, sometimes a person might get exasperated having to repeat themselves 10 times but a phone is not going to get exasperated," Dr Liddle said.
"We then got health professionals in to train the brain – we were teaching health professionals how to write the brain for their client groups, there is a lot of interest using chat-bots for adults after strokes, children with autism."
http://health.einnews.com/article/331748573/leSLB5bqizyW52nV
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