Can photographs be used to measure Parkinson's?

We are all familiar with the Parkinson's masked face. It's difficult to pin-down exactly what it is but, to put it bluntly, we don't look quite right.

In my case, for as long as I can remember, certainly by the age of 11, people would ask why I looked so miserable, even though as far as I was concerned I was perfectly happy. (Also, while still a kid, people were saying how rounded my shoulders were.) I was diagnosed with Parkinson's at the age of 49.

If others are like me, something as simple as a photograph could form the basis of a very useful research and diagnosis tool that would go some way to answering questions such as:
- Did PD come on slowly or quickly?
- When did I get PD?
- Do non-PwP show any signs of PD?

Put simply, what's needed is a computer system to assess a photograph of someone's face and give a Parkinson's score.

This is basically a face recognition problem. Software exists to do that. But, whether it would be accurate enough to detect the masked face, I don't know. If not, the obvious approach is to use a type of computer program called an artificial neural network (ironically, in our circumstances, this is a type of computer program based on a model of how the brain works) which allows you, first to train a computer to do something and then to get on and do the job.

The collection and analysis of data in this way is similar to what Max Little et al. at the Parkinson's Voice Initiative are doing, but they are collecting voice data using a telephone. I think their system is likely to be more accurate. However, I suspect that few people have a large number of recordings of their voice over time. Whereas with photographs, I suspect that most people could provide at least one photograph for most years of their life.

I'd be grateful for comments?

John