The Michael J. Fox Foundation and Intel are hoping that wearable technology can help in the fight against Parkinson's disease. The two organizations have teamed up for a study that uses wearable sensors to collect data on slowness of movement, tremors and sleep quality and then upload that data onto the cloud, where other researchers can freely access it. Around 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson's each year. The hope is that wearables could help bolster studies that normally require Parkinson's patients to self-report their symptoms. "I pay attention to my Parkinson's, but it's not everything I am all the time," Bret Parker, a participant in a study of 25 patients held earlier this year, said in a statement. "The wearables did that monitoring for me in a way I didn't even notice." Intel plans to expand the program later this year and release a new smartwatch app to help monitor Parkinson's symptoms.
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