In Europe there are around 75,000 new cases of Parkinson’s disease every year.
Chronic, degenerative and incurable, Parkinson’s disease affects five out of 1000 Europeans over 60 years old. Researchers are now using the latest technologies, including video games, to improve the accuracy of early diagnosis and provide patients with better rehabilitation treatments.
At a hospital in the Netherlands, an unusual experiment, involving a 68-year-old patient with Parkinson’s disease.
“I started suffering from pain in my lower back. But it took almost 3 years for doctors to identify my disease as Parkinson’s,” explains Harmien Floor-Schotten a Parkinson’s disease patient . That late, difficult diagnosis motivated her and other volunteers – both Parkinson’s patients and healthy subjects – to take part in a pre-clinical trial aimed at testing a revolutionary pen.
Early diagnosis, scientists say, is key to offer patients better advice, monitoring and rehabilitation.
Researchers then developed tailor made video games on existing commercial platforms. Games allow Parkinson’s patients to improve balance and overall mobility.
But researchers see even further. They are currently investigating if Parkinson s patients can improve their gait by just listening to regular sounds, including, for instance, the sound emitted by their own feet during walking.
More information: http://www.dipar.org http://www.qub.ac.uk