On March 9th, 2020 the Italian government imposed a national lockdown, due to COVID-19 outbreak. The restrictions aimed to protect fragile people with chronic diseases- a population that is particularly at risk of SARS-CoV-2 complications. However, these patients often need a tight follow-up, that enables physicians to adjust their therapies accordingly from time-to-time. Montfort’s app, has provided remote patient monitoring (RPM) in a real-life cohort of Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients, monitoring motor and cognitive performances. Dr. Marano Massimo from Campus Bio-Medico of Rome University summarizes his experience with the app.
“Remote patient monitoring became essential due to the lockdown”
I first met Ziv and Montfort near the end of 2019. I was interested in remote patient monitoring for my Parkinson’s Disease patients as the disease is very sensitive to drugs. In order to improve treatment, I was looking for an easy way to track our patients at home. Shortly after, the COVID pandemic started and remote patient monitoring became essential due to the lockdown, and we started using Montfort’s app.
The first cohort included 60 patients, 50-70 years of age, which were monitored for 3 months. During that time we evaluated their memory, attention, gait and other motor symptoms. Mon4t Home is user friendly and our patients find it easy to use, as it offers simple instructions in Italian. When tests are conducted, prompt feedback is available at the clinic, through an interface on the laptop, where we review and analyze the test results.
Obtaining accurate data is essential for neuroscience research, we had two main objectives for this work: to understand if patients were ready for this technology, especially elderly Italian patients, and to see if the tests taken at home agree with what we measure in the clinic. What we’ve found was that patients were pretty happy using the app and used it routinely. The results we obtained from home were accurate. We compared them to the results we had in the first research and they matched. At the moment, we don’t have an office that works with telemedicine but we’re moving towards it. We have also started using Montfort’s app for collecting data that may predict risk of falls. Elderly people with Parkinson have a higher risk of falling- at least 10-20 times higher to normal people.
The research was introduced in the International National Parkinson’s Disease and movement disorder Society congress. You may view the results on Frontiers in Neurology.
