New analytics transform the treatment of movement disorders
“Our goal is to make this the new gold standard for treating Parkinson’s disease.”
The treatment of Parkinson’s disease is currently based on short doctor’s appointments arranged a few times per year, during which patients talk about their symptoms and the doctor makes observations on the patient. As the symptoms may vary from day to day, prescribing medications based on appointments alone is challenging.
Adamant Health, a health tech company established in 2020, provides a solution for this problem. The company has developed a measurement and analysis service that utilizes a wearable sensor to measure muscular tremors and nerve signals transmitted by the brain from the patient’s arm over the course of several days.
Data on the symptoms is collected on a cloud and data analysis is used to compile an accurate symptom report to the doctor for the purpose of care planning.
“You’ll be able to instantly move on to care optimization, as the report shows the doctor the patient’s clinical picture for 2 to 4 days and any variation during and between these days. Our goal is to make this the new gold standard for treating Parkinson’s disease”, says Paulus Carpelan, CEO at Adamant Health.
Long-term research behind the technology
The service utilizes technology that one of the company’s founders, Saara Rissanen, a docent in medical technology, has been studying at the University of Eastern Finland for over 15 years. The service can be used in measuring and analyzing the symptoms of any movement disorder.
As such, there is nothing new in monitoring a patient’s movements. In the past, only accelerometers have been used for assessing care needs. However, a challenge emerges related to their use: it is difficult to determine why a movement has occurred or why the patient has been immobile based on motion data alone.
Meanwhile, as the medical device developed by Adamant Health is used to analyze both motions and nerve signals, it enables finding the root cause of the measured motions and distinguishing any symptoms caused by the disease from voluntary or environment-related causes. This is key to care planning.
The method also enables distinguishing between different movement disorders and identifying them at an early stage, as the brain is already transmitting nerve signals even though the patient is not yet presenting physical symptoms.
The service developed by Adamant Health will be introduced to the market in early 2022.
Making use of research knowledge
Globally, the prevalence of Parkinson’s disease is increasing most rapidly of all neurological diseases, and this is also the case in Finland. The goal of Adamant Health, which recently joined the Kuopio Health ecosystem, is to bring benefits to patients and society through the use of the knowledge obtained in academic research.
Paulus Carpelan estimates that the Kuopio Health open innovation ecosystem can help companies by compiling information about relevant events and training in a constantly changing environment.
He believes that the ecosystem can promote turning research findings into commercial innovations.
“It is important that researchers have a model for the commercial application of their discoveries. That requires help, coaching and know-how. We must also set our sights beyond Kuopio and find the best people in the world to take on the tasks. And those people won’t necessarily have to come to Kuopio physically”.
Carpelan puts emphasis on an international mindset right from the start of establishing a company. He finds it important that Kuopio Health promotes an attitude with international goals and preparing documentation and carrying out any other corporate activities in English. This also makes it easier to recruit international experts for the companies.
Source: Kuopio Health