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A generalizable and open-source algorithm for real-life monitoring of tremor in Parkinson's disease.

NPJ Parkinsons Dis · 2025-07-10

DOI: 10.1038/s41531-025-01056-2PMID: 40640229

Open accessresearch-article; Journal ArticleOriginal source ↗

Research overview

The text below is the source article’s original abstract under a verified reuse license. cc by

Wearable sensors can objectively and continuously monitor daily-life tremor in Parkinson's Disease (PD). We developed an open-source algorithm for real-life monitoring of PD tremor which achieves generalizable performance across different wrist-worn devices. We achieved this using a unique combination of two independent, complementary datasets. The first was a small, but extensively video-labeled gyroscope dataset collected during unscripted activities at home (n = 24 PD; n = 24 controls). We used this to train and validate a logistic regression tremor detector based on cepstral coefficients. The second was a large, unsupervised dataset (n = 517 PD; n = 50 controls, data collected for 2 weeks with a different device), used to externally validate the algorithm. Results show that our algorithm can reliably quantify real-life PD tremor (sensitivity of 0.61 (0.20) and specificity of 0.97 (0.05)). Weekly aggregated tremor time and power showed excellent test-retest reliability and moderate correlation to MDS-UPDRS rest tremor scores. This opens possibilities to support clinical trials and individual tremor management with wearable technology.

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