What's been happening at PDMeasure?

Since it was launched last October, PDMeasure has gradually been receiving data from a wide range of people.

NTageTap.png

Currently:
96 people have completed the basic data survey;
51 people have completed the medications survey;
340 completions of the side-to-side tap test have been recorded.

My thanks go to everyone who has donated data, and especially to those 5 or 6 people who have provided a long sequence of test data. (Everything is anonymous, so I can't thank them personally.)

Most of the data came as a result of PDMeasure featuring In a MJFF blog. My thanks go to them. They will be launching something similar later this year. The quality of their brand name is such that I expect them to get far more data.

In the meantime, PDMeasure requires more data. A pressing need is for people to repeat the side-to-side tap test. To join PDMeasure, or to donate more data or to access the data, go to:

http://www.parkinsonsmeasurement.org/PDMeasure/

NTminSinceMedsTap.png

A key requirement is for PDMeasure to have an online, objective symptom measurement test. We use the side-to-side tap test. This needs to be validated.

NTyearsPostDX.png

We have insufficient data to provide statistical significance, but the data so far shows, as we would expect:

- older people have, on average, lower scores than younger people,

- people with more years from diagnosis have, on average, lower scores than the newly diagnosed,

- it will vary from person to person, and according to the drugs they take, but after a person goes beyond a time, of, say, 100 min after their last medication, its effect will wear off, leading to lower scores.

It appears that people are learning to get higher scores in the test. One person reported that they could improve their score by moving their body as well as their arms and hands as they go to and thro between the q and p keys.

Combined left and right hand averages for doing the test for the 1st through 5th time are 38.1, 40.7, 38.4, 39.2, 39.6.

Why does this matter?

The improvement due to the "learning effect" could be credited wrongly either to the efficacy of the therapy under test or to the placebo effect.

To avoid this, any use of such tools should work through the learning period before their use in trials.

Finally, you can do more than just donating data, though if that's all you want to do, I'm still very grateful. You can help analyse the data. The computer code is open. Use it as you want. The data is open: you can use either the raw data or, simpler, use the joined data at the end of:
http://www.parkinsonsmeasurement.org...Statistics.php
It's still under construction, but what is there is good.

The data is in csv form, and can be put directly into Excel or, if you have some programming experience, I recommend R. Mine it.

MORE DATA + MORE ANALYSIS => MORE PROGRESS

John