The advent of unexpensive mutlipurpose devices like the Wii, the Kinect, the iPhone, and other motion capturing devices have opened up the opportunity for patients to track with objective measures the evolution and treatment of their Parkinson's Disease. Beyond this QuantifiedSelf approach, this have also created the possibility to run simple clinical trials at a very low cost, that could be funded thanks to the new crowdfunding approach.

1. Quantifying Your Parkinson’s
with a Wii
QuantifiedSelf Paris May 22, 2012
2012 FundMyMedicalResearch.org – http://twitter.com/FundMyMR
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2. Parkinson’s Disease
A brief introduction

3. What is Parkinson’s Disease?
 Neurological degeneration of substantia nigra’s cells
 Cells producing dopamine
 Disease characterized by tremors, bradykinesia (slowness),
rigidity
 Diagnostic is currently only clinical (observation)
 DaTScan can spot dopaminergic deficits and help differentiate with other
disorders but is not an official base for a diagnostic
 Only evaluation by a neurologist is recognized for diagnosis
 Looking for biomarkers – PPMI Michael J Fox Foundation’s
initiative
 DatScan measures?
 Cerebral Spinal Fluid analysis?
 Blood levels?
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4. Causes of Parkinson’s
 We don’t know!
 But we know that
 Dopamine producing cells in the Substantia Nigra (SN)
degenerate
 Basal ganglia cells do not receive enough dopamine and can’t
perform their complex job for motor, and mood, processing
loops
 Motor alterations of movements is more and more pronounced,
“potentially” until a bed-ridden stage
 “Usually” leading to a constant degradation in Quality of Life
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5. What’s the treatment?
 Compensate the loss of dopamine by supplying more levodopa,
a precursor that is transformed in dopamine
by the Substantia Nigra cells
 Though, we can’t monitor directly the number of SN cells
 We could see, thanks to a heavy procedure (DaTScan),
the uptake of dopamine in basal ganglia improving
 But mainly, we can see the improvement in motor condition
 Which is the basis for an official diagnosis
 Exercise is also shown to be important (as potent as dopamine agonists,
another drug class)
 “Use it or loose it” situation
 Probably improves uptake of dopamine
 Put neuroplasticity in motion
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6. The situation is
 Motor symptoms are the only easily
observable impact of the disease
 Depression is difficult to evaluate, and can be made worse by
motor problems
 Every Parkinson’s patient is different
 Mechanisms are extremely complex and idiopathies probably
very different
 Symptoms vary greatly among patients
 Levodopa has a short plasma half-life cycle (1 hour)
 Should be taken several times a day
 Proper doses throughout the day and adherence
to schedule are critical
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7. Why the Wii (or the Kinect, or the
iPhone,..) can help?
 Helps you exercising
 Monitors your movements
 Provides measures or indexes that you can
track (e.g. Wii-Fit age)
 Several studies are built on using the Wii to create physical
exercises, and monitor their impact
 Wii has been an early (objective) indicator
for a UK lady prior to her diagnosis
 Wii could serve to quantify objective measures among a large
set of patients, and control group
2012 FundMyMedicalResearch.org – http://twitter.com/FundMyMR
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8. Sara Riggare
A woman with Parkinson’s Disease. Not patient but im-patient

9. 2012 Sara Riggare – http://twitter.com/SaraRiggare
CC BY-NC-ND 2012 Sara Riggare – http://twitter.com/SaraRiggare CC BY-NC-ND

10. 2012 Sara Riggare – http://twitter.com/SaraRiggare
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11. 2012 Sara Riggare – http://twitter.com/SaraRiggare
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12. 2012 Sara Riggare – http://twitter.com/SaraRiggare
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13. 2012 Sara Riggare – http://twitter.com/SaraRiggare
2012 Sara Riggare – http://twitter.com/SaraRiggare CC BY-NC-ND
CC BY-NC-ND

14. When crowdfunding meets
quantified-self
Clinical trials that patients consider important, at fractions of the
cost

15. Crowdfunding clinical trials
 Using un-expensive material to monitor
patient and control groups
 Opening the scope of hypotheses to be quickly tested
 Exercise, dietary regimens
 Existence of sub-types for the disease
 Big Data coming to medical research
 23AndMe gathered genetic material from
6500+ people with Parkinson’s, leading to
new correlations between certain genes and the disease
 We could create a database of daily-living measures for
symptoms and impact of drugs (are there compounds
slowing down progression?)
2012 FundMyMedicalResearch.org – http://twitter.com/FundMyMR
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16. If you’re interested in a crowdfunding
challenge for quantified-self trials
Let’s emulate #SciFund Challenge success. If you’re interested in
seeing a similar Challenge for #quantifiedself #medicaltrials:
 Show this presentation around
 Contact me at fbaud@p2pventure.org
2012 FundMyMedicalResearch.org – http://twitter.com/FundMyMR
CC BY-NC-ND