A smartphone camera reveals an ‘invisible’ Parkinsonian tremor: a potential pre-motor biomarker?

Abstract

There are a wide variety of ways to objectively detect neurological signs, but these either require special hard-ware (such as wearable technology) or patient behaviour change (such as engagement with smartphone tasks) [2]. Neither constraint applies to the technology of computer vision, which is the processing of single or multiple camera images by computer to automatically derive useful information. The only equipment involved is ubiquitous: camera and computer.We report a computer vision-enhanced video sequence from a 68-year-old man, diagnosed with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease 2 years previously.