Leeds Teaching Hospitals is piloting the app for Parkinson’s disease

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is running a six-month pilot of a smartphone app designed to monitor and manage Parkinson’s disease symptoms, with the aim of supporting more personalized patient care.

There are 90 patients taking part in the pilot of the Neu Health app, which started in March 2024 and will run until September 2024, with further adoption depending on the outcome of an evaluation.

Parkinson’s disease is a condition that causes parts of the brain to progressively deteriorate over time, with symptoms that include involuntary tremors, slow movement, and stiff, inflexible muscles.

The app aims to enable patients to manage their disease by allowing them to record symptoms, which provides data for personal follow-up and clinical assessments.

It also integrates with clinical care teams, with information entered automatically copied to Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust via a secure dashboard.

Healthcare professionals can view data and information about each patient to help them provide more personalized and effective treatment plans.

Commenting on the pilot, Dr Jeremy Cosgrove, consultant neurologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “The number of people with Parkinson’s in the UK continues to rise as the average age of the population increases.

“To keep up with demand and maintain a high level of care, we need to explore new ways of monitoring and reviewing some of our patients. I am excited to be involved in this project and look forward to exploring the results and hopefully improving our service.”

The app also includes personalized health information and digital tests that can assess aspects of a patient’s condition, such as voice, gait, balance, tremors and finger dexterity.

Dr Kinan Muhammed, Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder at Neu Health, said: “We are very excited to be working with Leeds Teaching Hospital on this new initiative.

“This approach has the potential to reshape the way neurological care is delivered within the NHS, ultimately benefiting both patients and healthcare professionals.”

Ian Bresloff, a patient who has used the Neu Health app from Leeds Teaching Hospitals, said: “I think it is imperative that there are more objective measures of Parkinson’s symptoms that are accessible and measurable in a non-clinic environment that provide a continuous monitoring. , with results available for review in the clinic, leading to data-driven dosing of more drugs.”

In February 2024, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust began working with the laboratory information system, WinPath from Clinisys to modernize its blood transfusion service.