NHS Rollout “Life-Changing” Smartwatch For Parkinson’s Patients

The National Health Service (NHS) England, is to provide thousands of smartwatches to Parkinson’s disease patients to facilitate their effective home treatment. The smartwatch called Parkinson’s Kinetigraph, has built-in sensors that monitor the patient’s activities and beeps when it’s time for medication.

Doctors later analyze the collected data to know the patient’s activities including sleep disorder, excessive movement, and immobility. With this data, doctors can make further or adjust prescriptions or physiotherapy to suit the patient’s current needs.

The NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, is confident that the watch will be a gamechanger by helping to improve the quality of life for the over 120,000 Parkinson’s patients in the county. She believes it will also enhance NHS efficiency.

“Parkinson’s is an incurable illness that has a significant impact on people’s lives and this small watch will dramatically improve their quality of life”. She further went on to say that home care will be more efficient with accurate access to all the patients medical history.

NHS piloted the scheme on hundreds of patients and is time to roll out. A participant of the pilot program, John Whipps said “the problem is that Parkinson’s changes from day to day, and even throughout each day.  

“Under the traditional system, you have to remember all your concerns and symptoms between visits, ensure you can attend the appointment, have the stress of getting to the hospital on time, and then remember to tell your consultant how you are,” he added.

Regarding the smartwatch, Whipps indicated that “It gives you confidence as you know it gives accurate recordings, and you don’t need to rely so much on your perception. As the non-motor symptoms begin to be recorded digitally, they will also help doctors track those and inform the healthcare team.”