IBM creates Artificial Intelligence that predicts how Parkinson’s will progress in people

In the last two decades, medical science has advanced by leaps and bounds, with which it has been able to counteract some of the worst diseases that affect humans today. Cancer, Brain Problems, and Urinary System Discomfort These are some of the situations that, although they have not been able to be cured, they have been treated in a more appropriate and gentle way with the patients.

For this reason, every time new ways of treating a disease are added, medicine smiles, because it is to see how science and technology collaborate with each other for what should always be one of its great objectives: caring for people.

An example of this is the “hubbub” caused by the invention of a group of IBM scientists who, with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI), have created a system that can detect and predict early on how Parkinson’s disease will develop or progress in a patient.

“Our goal is to use artificial intelligence to help with patient management and clinical trial design. These goals are important because, despite the prevalence of Parkinson’s, patients experience a unique variety of motor and non-motor symptoms”Explained IBM.

The research was published a couple of days ago in The Lancet Digital Health, a scientific journal specializing in health issues, in which the experts in charge of the project explain that with this they were able to develop “a model of statistical progression of early Parkinson’s disease that takes into account the intra-individual and inter-individual variability and the effects of medication, avoiding the limitations of previous models that have not taken into account these important factors ”.

“Our model uncovered non-sequential and overlapping disease progression trajectories, supporting the use of non-deterministic disease progression models and suggesting that static subtyping may be ineffective in capturing the full spectrum of disease progression. Parkinson’s disease “

In short, this research decided to see Parkinson’s not as a homogeneous or routine disease, which manifests itself in the same way in people who suffer from it. The individualization of patients is what makes this system attractive, since studies the pathology under the effects of it and the medicine used to treat it specifically in each human being. In fact, in this aspect lies the importance of having an Artificial Intelligence that analyzes the possible behaviors of the disease in the future in each patient.

“Parkinson’s disease is a heterogeneous disorder, with a marked variability between raters and intra-raters in its manifestations, especially in the early stages of the disease course ”, adds the research document.

Finally, it should be remembered that this research would not have been possible without the help of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, an organization that specializes in conducting studies that contribute to the discovery of different forms of treatment against Parkinson’s in the world.

Likewise, it is noteworthy to indicate that it bears the name of its founder Michael J. Fox, the mythical protagonist of the film series ‘Back to the Future’, who in 1991, at just 29 years old, was diagnosed with this disease. The actor launched the foundation in 2000 and has since been recognized as a “patient advocate” for others who have also suffered from Parkinson’s throughout their lives.

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