Objective: This work presents an evaluation of the satisfaction of physicians from using a continuous telemonitoring system for patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: The standard practice for evaluating PD symptoms is highly subjective and inaccurate and can be considered flawed [1], [2]. The route to objective evaluation of PD symptoms lies in the use of continuous telemonitoring systems (i.e., recording for some days per month), which could also help personalize and provide remote access to quality healthcare services. The application of telemonitoring to PD has been studied extensively as a new paradigm for managing the disease in general [3]–[7] and also during the COVID-19 pandemic [8]–[10], which made a lot of patients avoid visits to physicians and healthcare units.

Method: The user satisfaction and clinical benefits of the telemonitoring system [11] was evaluated in a multicenter, single arm, clinical trial. The study includes a baseline and two follow-up patient visits (month 3 and 6). At each visit, a number of different scales and questionnaires are filled by patients and physicians. A specially-designed questionnaire is used to evaluate the physician satisfaction and the usability of the system for each patient visit.

Results: From 14 completed physician questionnaires we extracted the following statistics:
85.7% of physicians said that the use of the system helped to better evaluate patients’ symptoms.
78.6% of responders indicated that the system helped to faster assess patients’ symptoms.
78.6% of physicians said that the use of the system helped them make decisions about therapeutic interventions in patients. More specifically, based on physicians’ input, there were 16 medication changes based on system-provided information. 
92.9% of replies indicate that the use of the system helps to accurately record patient’s symptoms in their environment, without limiting their daily activities.
85.7% of physicians believe that the use of the system helps them to better assess the general situation of patients in their own environment, without being a burden to their clinical work.

Conclusion: The results demonstrate that the vast majority of physicians agree a telemonitoring wearable system could help them better and faster assess the symptoms of patients in their own environment, without additional burden for physicians, while providing meaningful information in the decision-making process for therapeutic interventions.

References: [1] E. R. Dorsey et al., “Moving Parkinson care to the home,” Mov. Disord., vol. 31, no. 9, pp. 1258–1262, 2016.
[2] E. Tenison et al., “Proactive and integrated management and empowerment in Parkinson’s disease: Designing a new model of care,” Park. Dis., vol. 2020, 2020.
[3] M. Heijmans et al., “Monitoring Parkinson’s disease symptoms during daily life: a feasibility study,” NPJ Park. Dis., vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 1–6, 2019.
[4] A. T. Tzallas et al., “PERFORM: a system for monitoring, assessment and management of patients with Parkinson’s disease,” Sensors, vol. 14, no. 11, pp. 21329–21357, 2014.
[5] E. E. Tripoliti et al., “Automatic detection of freezing of gait events in patients with Parkinson’s disease,” Comput. Methods Programs Biomed., vol. 110, no. 1, pp. 12–26, 2013.
[6] K. M. Tsiouris et al., “{PD}\_Manager: an {mHealth} platform for {Parkinson}’s disease patient management,” Healthc. Technol. Lett., vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 102–108, 2017, doi: 10.1049/htl.2017.0007.
[7] G. Rigas et al., “Assessment of tremor activity in the Parkinson’s disease using a set of wearable sensors,” IEEE Trans. Inf. Technol. Biomed., vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 478–487, 2012.
[8] R. C. Helmich and B. R. Bloem, “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Parkinson’s disease: hidden sorrows and emerging opportunities,” J. Parkinsons. Dis., vol. 10, no. 2, p. 351, 2020.
[9] K. I. Tsamis, G. Rigas, K. Nikolaos, D. I. Fotiadis, and S. Konitsiotis, “Accurate Monitoring of Parkinson’s Disease Symptoms With a Wearable Device During COVID-19 Pandemic,” In Vivo (Brooklyn)., vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 2327–2330, 2021.
[10] B. R. Bloem, E. R. Dorsey, and M. S. Okun, “The coronavirus disease 2019 crisis as catalyst for telemedicine for chronic neurological disorders,” JAMA Neurol., vol. 77, no. 8, pp. 927–928, 2020.
[11] N. Kostikis, G. Rigas, N. Tachos, S. Konitsiotis, and D. I. Fotiadis, “On-Body Sensor Position Identification with a Simple, Robust and Accurate Method, Validated in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease,” in 2020 42nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine \& Biology Society (EMBC), 2020, pp. 4156–4159.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/physician-satisfaction-from-continuous-telemonitoring-in-parkinsons-disease/