Smartwatch for the analysis of rest tremor in patients with Parkinson's disease

Abstract Wearable technology used in Parkinson's disease (PD) research has become an increasing focus of interest in this field. Our group assessed the feasibility, clinical correlation, reliability, and acceptance of smartwatches in order to quantify arm resting tremors in PD patients. An Android application on a smartwatch was used to obtain raw data from the smartwatch's gyroscopes. Twenty-two PD patients were consecutively recruited and followed for 1 year. Arm rest tremors were video filmed and scored by two independent raters using the motor subscale of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS-III). The tremor intensity parameter was defined by the root mean square of the angular speed measured by the smartwatch at the wrist. Sixty-four smartwatch evaluations were completed. The Spearman coefficient among the mean of the resting tremor (UPDRS-III) scores and smartwatch measurements for tremor intensity was 0.81 ( p