PORTSMOUTH, N.H. and MELBOURNE, Australia, April 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Kinetics Corporation Ltd. today announced the publication of a study evaluating the clinical utility of objective treatment targets derived from its wearable FDA-cleared technology, the Personal KinetiGraph™ (PKG™) smart watch, in the treatment and management of Parkinson’s disease (PD). As the most prevalent movement disorder worldwide, PD currently evades effective symptom management with available therapies due to the lack of objective measurement tools. This study, published online in Nature’s npj Parkinson’s Disease on April 3, 2018, was the first of its kind to provide physicians with objective and continuous information to help calibrate their treatment recommendations (www.nature.com/articles/s41531-018-0046-4).

Dr. Frank Nicklason, Geriatrician, Royal Hobart Hospital, and an author on the study report, commented, “I find the PKG valuable in my clinical practice as my patients are not always able to define their response to their Parkinson’s medication. The PKG record helps me adjust therapy to get better control of symptoms and improved quality of life for my patients. It really helps me manage my Northern Tasmanian patients who I am not able to see as frequently.”

Unlike contemporary management for many other chronic diseases, PD has remained a “targetless” disease since it was first characterized more than 200 years ago. Currently, there are no validated continuous objective metrics for assessing or managing PD that can help physicians triage patients and calibrate treatment recommendations in the same way that blood sugar levels, peak flow measures or blood pressure readings are used to manage other common chronic conditions such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease.
Professor Malcolm Horne, Movement Disorder Specialist, Global Kinetics Founder, and an author on the study report, said, “This study provides evidence that objective measurement and targets can improve outcome for people with Parkinson’s Disease in Australia and worldwide. Many specialist clinicians around the world are now using the PKG to guide their treatment of people with Parkinson’s. Introducing PKG targets may, in time, enable other clinicians and nurses to treat people with Parkinson’s disease through the eyes of objective measurement.”

The study reported in npj Parkinson’s Disease demonstrates that the use of objective targets and measurement with the PKG™ system significantly improved clinical care and quality of life for people with PD. For the first time, this study provides physicians with objective and continuous information to help physicians calibrate their treatment recommendations in a timely method. The study included 103 PD patients from the Northern part of Tasmania, Australia. This population was chosen because it is representative of patients across the spectrum of PD symptoms around the world with low levels of access to specialist care.

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