technology
Parkinson’s in
the picture
Photo: RMIT
Neurology test diagnoses Parkinson’s disease
by analysing a patient’s drawing ability.
By Dallas Bastian
A
simple drawing test is being hailed by researchers as the
first tool to diagnose Parkinson’s disease when there are
no obvious physical symptoms.
RMIT University researchers have developed diagnostic software
that analyses the way people draw an Archimedean spiral and
detects signs of Parkinson’s.
Chief investigator professor Dinesh Kumar said researchers have
long known that Parkinson’s disease affects people’s writing and
sketching abilities, but efforts to translate that insight into a reliable
assessment method have failed – until now.
Working with Dandenong Neurology, the team studied 62
people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Half had no visible
symptoms and half ranged from mildly to severely affected.
Kumar said: “The customised software we’ve developed records
how a person draws a spiral and analyses the data in real time.
The only equipment you need to run the test is a pen, paper and a
large drawing tablet.”
The pen used in the study senses the location of contact
and pressure between the tip and the paper, and researchers
developed proprietary software to record and analyse the data in
real time.
Kumar said: “With this tool we can tell whether someone has
Parkinson’s disease and calculate the severity of their condition,
with a 93 per cent accuracy rate.
“While we still have more research to do, we’re hopeful that in
future doctors or nurses could use our technology to regularly
screen their patients for Parkinson’s, as well as help those living
with the disease to better manage their condition.”
Parkinson’s is the second most common neurological disease
in Australia after dementia and affects about 80,000 people
nationally and 10 million worldwide.
Every day 32 Australians are diagnosed with the disease. A fifth
of these are under the age of 50 and 10 per cent are diagnosed
before the age of 40.
According to Parkinson’s Australia, the four key symptoms of
the disease are tremors, slowness of movement, muscle rigidity
and instability.
36 agedcareinsite.com.au
Professor Dinesh Kumar and
PhD researcher Poonam
Zham. Photo: RMIT
The peak body says current diagnostic interventions include
magnetic resonance imaging, to rule out other neurological
conditions that may resemble Parkinson’s, and computed
tomography scans, to rule out structural abnormalities that may
result in Parkinson’s-like symptoms.
The RMIT team hopes its technology could one day be used as a
standard screening test to spot the condition in its earliest stages.
Kumar said many treatment options for Parkinson’s were effective
only when the disease was diagnosed early.
“Pushing back the point at which treatment can start is critical,
because we know that by the time someone starts to experience
tremors or rigidity,