Touchscreen Distal Motor Test for Quantitative Clinical Parameter
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for staging neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis, spinal muscular atrophy, and Huntington's disease are cumbersome, subjective, and often require specialized equipment, making them inefficient for widespread use and accurate monitoring.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method and system using a mobile device with a touchscreen to administer a distal motor test, extracting digital biomarker feature data from user inputs, which can be used to quantify clinical parameters such as the expanded disability status scale, forced vital capacity, or total motor score, facilitating remote and objective disease progression assessment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional staging systems are used to assess neurological diseases, then clinical expertise and subjective judgment are required, but the process becomes cumbersome, time-consuming, and difficult to standardize
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical system of manual clinical assessment with a digital touchscreen-based interaction system. Users perform motor tasks on a touchscreen display, and the system automatically captures and analyzes the movement data, substituting the subjective clinical judgment process with an objective digital measurement system.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables patients to perform self-assessment at home using their own mobile devices. The touchscreen captures motor performance data directly from the patient's movements, and the processing unit automatically analyzes this data to generate clinical parameter assessments, eliminating the need for patients to travel to medical facilities and reducing dependency on clinician availability.
2Measurement precision
If specialized equipment is used to determine clinical parameters, then measurement accuracy is improved, but device complexity and accessibility are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the touchscreen display serve multiple functions: it displays visual targets for motor tasks, captures the user's motor performance through touch input, and provides feedback during the assessment. This multi-functional use of a common device eliminates the need for specialized equipment while maintaining measurement capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a digital copy of the clinical assessment process that can be performed on standard mobile devices. Instead of requiring specialized medical equipment, the touchscreen replicates the essential measurement functions, capturing motor performance data through digital interaction that mirrors traditional clinical tests.
3Adaptability or versatility
If manual assessment methods are used, then clinical expertise is utilized, but reproducibility and objectivity of results are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system incorporates real-time feedback mechanisms where the touchscreen display shows visual targets and the processing unit analyzes the user's motor performance as they interact with the display. This automated feedback loop ensures consistent application of assessment criteria and provides objective measurement of motor function, improving reproducibility while maintaining adaptability through programmable test protocols.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented method for quantitatively determining a clinical parameter indicative of a status or progression of a disease comprises the steps of: providing a distal motor test to a user of a mobile device, the mobile device having a touchscreen display, wherein providing the distal motor test to the user of the mobile device comprises: causing the touchscreen display of the mobile device to display an image comprising: a reference start point, a reference end point, and indication of a reference path to be traced between the start point and the end point; receiving an input from the touchscreen display of the mobile device, the input indicative of a test path traced by a user attempting to trace the reference path on the display of the mobile device, the test path comprising: a test start point, a test end point, and a test path traced between the test start point and the test end point; and extracting digital biomarker feature data from the received input, the digital biomarker feature data comprising: a deviation between the test end point and the reference end point; a deviation between the test start point and the reference start point; and/or a deviation between the test start point and the reference end point; and wherein: the extracted digital biomarker feature data is the clinical parameter; or the method further comprises calculating the clinical parameter from the extracted biomarker feature data.