Study Rationale: Digital tools can provide objective, sensitive, real-world measures of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Better measures could lead to more efficient, patient-centric and timely evaluation of therapies. Extension of WATCH-PD, a 12-month study of digital measures in early PD, with longitudinal remote digital assessments and participant input will allow us to build upon a rich dataset that will help inform the use of digital measures in PD clinical trials.
Hypothesis: We hypothesize that we can identify digital measures that are sensitive to change over time in early PD.
Study Design: We will recruit participants from the original WATCH-PD study to continue remote clinical and digital assessments for an additional 12 months. Participants will complete smartphone application tasks monthly and wear a smartwatch for 1 week every 3 months.
Impact on Diagnosis/Treatment of Parkinson’s disease: Identifying digital measures that are sensitive to change in early PD will help speed the development of therapies. Collecting digital data along with our qualitative study extension will help inform use of digital tools in future trials, ensuring that we are measuring what is most important to people with PD.
Next Steps for Development: This study will help us in the search for more objective, precise and patient-centric measures of PD, which will lead to more efficient and meaningful evaluation of therapies.