Samsung at the MIT Grand Hack, Part 1
Diego Lizarazo Rivera
Senior Developer Evangelist
The Key Watch team won the Samsung Breakthroughs That Matter Award in the Rare and Orphan Diseases track. This team was distinguished not only for the clarity of their project, but also for their enthusiasm to incorporate Samsung technologies in their pitch.
The Key Watch team with Christopher Balcik, Samsung Vice President of Federal Government Business
During the weekend, the team developed a way to monitor response to medication to tackle misdiagnosis of Parkinson's disease vs drug-induced parkinsonism (DIP), which is the second most common cause for parkinsonism.
While displaying similar symptoms, a rare disease requires an entirely separate treatment process. Additionally, up to 15% of Parkinson’s disease patients have the rare variant DIP, so, Key Watch’s solution could improve the life of tens of thousands, just in the US.
Their envisioned system would work like this:
- A patient having parkinsonism symptoms would come in to consult with the doctor on an actionable plan for their treatment.
- Because Parkinson’s Disease accounts for 85% parkinsonism cases, they are likely to be classified as having Parkinson’s disease (PD).
- They are given treatment for PD and monitored - if their symptoms get better, as detected by Key Watch’s platform, then that would support their diagnosis.
- However, if the patient actually has DIP, the PD medication would have little to no effect, and through Key Watch’s continuous monitoring tool doctors can quickly intervene and pivot the treatment protocol.
- After enrolling on the platform, Key Watch would have continuous feedback on the patients tracked symptoms over time, which enables the doctor to effectively adjust the drug dosage.
The Key Watch members looked into the different sensors that the Samsung Galaxy watches could provide them, and focused on the gyroscope and the accelerometer APIs, that would give them data from a patient’s movements, including tremors and slow movement. With enough data, and medical experience, the proposed system would be able to detect the source of a patient’s movement abnormalities.
To learn more about how you can get access to the Samsung wearable devices sensors, visit the Samsung Developer Program and start creating your own apps now.
