Objective: The aim of this study is the development and qualified evaluation of a smartphone app-based application to enable a longitudinal assessment of Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients during the various stages of PD progression as well as an individualized PD management.

Background: PD is a progressive non-curable neurodegenerative condition presenting with numerous motor and non-motor features. Routinely assessed by observations through medical professional, the symptoms are often rated as part of categorical clinical scores. However, such assessments are time-consuming and may hinder a holistic consideration of patients’ and caregivers’ burden, as they often rely on very few aspects. Additionally, increasing immobility often entails losses in quality of care, especially when standardized clinical assessments are levied at too great intervals.

The implementation of new, personalized health care approaches for PD is needed, in order to address current gaps in health care and to meet the demands of a growing patient population. A change in medical guidelines from episodic clinical towards a continuous home-based chronic care model seems desirable. However, up until today such technology is missing.

Method: We intend to establish a modular structured app-based monitoring approach to additionally assess PD patients in a standardized manner over the entire duration of their disease. Therefore, we defined the project scope and developed a prototype for each assessment, which is tested and validated for its domestic use.

Results: We expect this study to demonstrate that episodic clinical appointments are not sufficient to address the relevant disease-specific factors. In addition, we assume that the continuous smartphone app-based assessment records the changes more accurately.

Conclusion: The future of medicine will be largely defined by digitalization of healthcare procedures. The presented modular structured app offers a data medium for domestic testing and adoption of medical and non-medical therapies in PD without additional clinical appointments. Within an integrated care network, this approach represents a step towards individual patient care.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/development-and-quantified-evaluation-of-a-continuous-smartphone-app-based-monitoring-approach-to-individualize-parkinsons-disease-management/