Parkinson’s disease is affecting 7 to 10 million patients worldwide with strongly increasing prevalence in Western societies. Patients suffer from a variety of symptoms (e.g. tremor, gait and speech impairment, cognitive decline), which differ widely between individuals and can vary over short periods of time. The cause of the disease is mostly unknown. Existing medications cannot stop disease progression, which highly varies from subject to subject, imposing major challenges for disease management as well as discovery of new medications. Digital technology (sensors, devices, smartphone based mobile health applications) currently attract a lot of attention, because digital measures derived from such technology has the potential to measure disease symptoms more objectively than established questionnaire based clinical assessments. In addition, such measures could be taken round the clock, increasing robustness. However, before moving into clinical practice digital technologies need to be evaluated carefully regarding the actual clinical benefit.
