Massachusetts General launches observational substudy using smartphones to measure Parkinson’s Disease progression and treatment effects in clinical substudy – in the smartphone substudy participants will download ‘Smart4SURE’, a customized version of the mPower application developed by Sage Bionetworks.
March 2, 2017 – Boston – Parkinson’s disease researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have launched an observational substudy designed to test the feasibility and accuracy of using patient-owned smartphones to measure symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. These efforts are part of a larger NIH-funded clinical trial, called a “Study of Urate Elevation in Parkinson’s Disease, Phase 3 (SURE-PD3),” which examines whether an oral medication called inosine can slow progression of Parkinson’s disease.
As part of the smartphone substudy—which enrolled its first patient this week—participants will download and use a customized version of the iOS-based mPower application called ‘Smart4SURE,’ a customized version of the mPower application developed by Sage Bionetworks.This application contains surveys that parallel those administered during clinic visits as well as structured activity tests that utilize the sensors in the phone to assess performance in movement tasks that are impacted by Parkinson’s disease – including walking, standing, tapping on the phone, and ‘saying ah.’
Individuals will perform self-assessments on their phone at their regular study visits, which are spaced months apart, and at home on a weekly basis. The results of those assessments will be compared to those obtained in the clinic to determine whether they correlate and whether the data from the smartphone application provides additional insights not captured by traditional outcomes. Read the full story.
