NHS smartwatches 'significantly improves' quality of life of Parkinson's patients

Experts say more research needs to be done into technologies for Parkinson’s patients before wider rollout

Around 145,000 people in the UK have Parkinson’s disease (Getty Images)

Up to 120,000 Parkinson’s patients in England could be offered smartwatches that provide a “transformative effect” on their daily care.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have recommended five technologies that could help improve symptoms and quality of life for people with Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s is an incurable condition that affects the brain and is caused by loss of dopamine-producing cells, resulting in progressive loss of coordination and movement problems.

Mark Chapman, interim director of Medical Technology at NICE, said: “Providing wearable technology to people with Parkinson’s disease could have a transformative effect on their care and lead to changes in their treatment taking place more quickly.”

The five products recommended by NICE are the The Personal KinetiGraph (PKG) Movement Recording System, STAT-ON, Kinesia 360, KinesiaU  and PDMonitor.

Each device monitors a patients movements and records data, and some include diaries of symptoms and can even set reminders for users to take their medication.

Smartwatches can have a “transformative effect” on the quality of life of Parkinson’s patients, says NICE (Getty Images)

However, experts at NICE say more research into the devices must be carried out by the NHS in order to provide further evidence on the impact of the use of such technologies for patients and carers.

Mr Chapman added: “There is uncertainty in the evidence at present on these five promising technologies which is why the committee has conditionally recommended their use by the NHS while data is collected to eliminate these evidence gaps.

“We are committed to balancing the best care with value for money, delivering both for individuals and society as a whole, while at the same time driving innovation into the hands of health and care professionals to enable best practice.”

The NHS has already begun collecting data on one of the devices and hundreds of patients have already been issued with the Personal KinetiGraph (PKG) watch in a scheme that could be rolled out to around 120,000 Parkinson’s patients in England.

Dr Katherine Fletcher, Research Manager at Parkinson’s UK, said: “It’s great to hear that steps are being taken towards increasing the use of technology and wearable devices to improve care for people with Parkinson’s.

“Adding new ways to measure and monitor an individual’s symptoms could really help build a round the clock picture of symptoms and improve treatment and care. This is vital for the 145,000 people diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the UK,” she added.

“More evidence is now needed to gather exactly how these devices can be used day to day and embedded in a consistent way into care pathways.

“It will also be interesting to understand how these devices could be used  to help accelerate research to better measure the potential benefits of new treatments in clinical trials.”