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Descripción
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| Nowadays the importance of bio-medical engineering and mobile applications for healthcare is amazingly growing. During the last decades many devices and technological solutions have become available on the market and the interest in applying those technologies to the treatment of several kinds of pathologies has consequently increased. This chapter addresses the problem of continuous monitoring of patients affected by Parkinson?s Disease (PD) and proposes a set of technologies to improve the following and management of such subjects. PD is a neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system that affects motor skills and speech (Tolosa, 1998). The primary biochemical abnormality in PD is a deficiency of dopamine due to degeneration of neurons in the substantia nigra pars compact (D. G. Standaert & Young, 2001). The characteristic motor features of the disease include bradykinesia (i.e. slowness of movement), tremor, rigidity (i.e. resistance to externally imposed movements), flexed posture, postural instability and freezing of gait. Furthermore, PD is usually characterised by the loss of normal prosody of the speech (Darkins et al., 1988). According to the World Health Organisation [WHO], 2002), there are more than six million people worldwide affected by PD. The syndrome typically appears around the age of 60. It affects Europeans and North Americans more often than Asians or Africans and it is more common in men than in women. PD affects about 2% of the population over the age of 65 years, figure that is expected to double by 2020 (de Lau & Breteler, 2006). For those reasons, PD poses a significant public health burden, which is likely to increase in the coming years. Annual medical care, including doctors? visits, physical therapies and treatment for co- occurring illnesses -such as depression- is estimated at $2,000 to $7,000 for people in early stages of the disease, and it is probably much higher for advanced stages. Surgical treatments for PD can cost $25,000 or more. As the disease progresses, institutional care at an assisted-living facility or nursing home may be required, and the related costs can exceed $100,000, per person annually. Technology in general and specifically ICT might be an affordable alternative for PD?s patients? treatment and management. The development of platforms for remote health status monitoring, the qualitative and quantitative assessment and treatment personalization for people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases is expecting to provide in the future a remarkable improvement in patients? management as well as a substantial cutting-off of the economic burden generated by the disease. New technologies allow monitoring the evolution of the disease through the employment of a wide range of wearable and user-friendly micro-sensors. Moreover, the last advances in data processing and data mining algorithms is bound to provide more accurate information about the diverse aspects of PD evolution. Finally, it is important to highlight the huge potential in costs reduction that such platforms could yield. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that the reduction in costs of hospitalization and treatment represents an attractive asset for the market forces involved in the development of biomedical applications. Diagnostics and Rehabilitation of Parkinson's Disease | |
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Internacional
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Si |
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DOI
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Edición del Libro
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Editorial del Libro
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InTech |
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ISBN
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978-953-307-791-8 |
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Serie
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Título del Libro
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Laura Pastor-Sanz, Mario Pansera, Jorge Cancela, Matteo Pastorino and Mari?a Teresa Arredondo Waldmeyer (2011). Mobile Systems as a Challenge for Neurological Diseases Management ? The Case of Parkinson's Disease, Diagnostics and Rehabilitation of Parkinson's Disease, Dr. Juliana Dushanova (Ed.), IS |
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Desde página
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287 |
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Hasta página
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308 |