Healthy participants needed to test smartphone app for Parkinson’s research
A clinical trial at The Neuro hopes a new app will help speed up the search for treatments by assessing patients’ symptom changes more accurately
March 26, 2025
By Sophie Lorenzo
A study underway at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) is validating a new smartphone application that aims to assess subtle fluctuations in the symptoms of those living with Parkinson’s Disease. Healthy individuals over 60 years of age are needed to advance the research by acting as a control group for the study.
The app was developed by Hoffmann-La Roche in consultation with Ron Postuma, MD, the director of the Movement Disorders clinic at The Neuro and an international leader in Parkinson’s research. He hopes that this motion-sensing app will help assess potential new therapies in clinical trials more quickly and accurately.
Remote assessment
“Until now, we relied on how patients were feeling when we met them in our clinic in the course of a clinical trial. We only had a limited picture of how the medication being tested was working,” explains Postuma. “The idea behind this app is to precisely assess individuals in their home environment and to check in more frequently on their progression.”
The Parkinson Disease Biomarkers Study (PDBS) is running at sites across Quebec and Canada. Its primary objective is to determine whether data collected from a movement-sensing application can reliably track motor and non-motor symptoms and detect subtle changes. The app includes both active testing (small tests participants are asked to perform daily) and passive monitoring (in which the phone assesses their mobility).
Consistent symptom management
There are over 100,000 Canadians living with Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disease in which the cells that normally produce dopamine (which helps control movement) die off, resulting in tremors, impaired balance and muscle rigidity and many non-motor symptoms such as cognitive changes and mood disorders.
While there are some treatments to help manage symptoms, ensuring consistent medication levels to help smooth out symptom fluctuations remains a challenge. Being able to pinpoint changes in an individual’s response to treatment would help determine the efficacy of new treatments more accurately.
“With this app, we can look at changes over time. We also hope to detect changes in response to treatment with much more sensitivity than before,” concludes Postuma. “This would allow us to design more sensitive trials for Parkinson’s disease and to be better able to test new medication.”
Healthy participants needed
Healthy participants over 60 are important collaborators for this study, which has only an initial assessment at The Neuro and one month’s participation using the app daily at home. A smartphone and smartwatch will be provided for the study.
People with Parkinson’s Disease who are two to six years from diagnosis can also take part in the longer study which will assess affected individuals.
For more information or to participate, contact the Movement Disorders Team of the Clinical Research Unit at The Neuro: neurocog-cru.neuro@mcgill.ca; (514) 398-5500; cru.mcgill.ca/mvtdis.
