Parkinson's app brings together gaming and health care

A new app called Cognitia PD is connecting gamer skills and healthcare to improve disease managementfor people with Parkinson's disease.

The app is made up of several mutli-level mini-games and will be distributed to Parkinson's support groups throughout North America.

Researchers from UBC'sPacific Parkinson's Research Centre are gathering information on players' working memoriesand reaction times.

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The project began in Augustfollowing a chance encounter at a Parkinson's fundraiser afew months earlier, wherethe managing director of Surrey based Conquer Mobile, Kathy O'Donoghue, metthe director of UBC's Pacific Parkinson's Research Centre, Dr. Martin McKeown.

O'Donoghue, whosesisterNancyhas hadParkinson's for 10 years, was interested in connecting her gamedevelopmentskills with Parkinson's research.

"It feels good to build technology for family. And ... beyond my passion for helping people with Parkinson's, it's really great to see gaming, technologyand mobile apps help ussolvingproblems that we face in our everyday lives," saidO'Donoghue.

Improvements to patient care

According to Dr. McKeown, one of the key concerns with Parkinson's patients is themonitoring of their symptoms and medication.

He says patients normally meet with a specialist just once a yearand the scarcity of professionals in remote areas can amplify thatproblem.

TheCognitiaPD app aims to reduce this issue by providing physicians with daily or weekly records of a patient's disease progression based on their game play, instead of a once-a-yearsnapshot.

"In between visits, if you're playing this game and your health changes, you're not just on your own. You knowthere's some comfort in the fact that your doctor is monitoring the data once a weekor how ever often you play," saidO'Donoghue.

Mass distribution

The app developers and researchers are currently sifting through data from their first test of the games at theWorld Parkinson's Congress in Portland last month, butMcKeown says they are also looking for participants with and without Parkinson's to sign up to use the app.

"This is becoming an increasingly important area in Parkinson's.I think we've always known that we needed to be able to monitor people over time.I think the problem is that the technology just wasn't there to enable us to do this," saidMcKeown.

O'Donoghue andMcKeownsay they are working on a few more games to test other functionsand plan to have the app available across all platforms soon.