Utkarsh Tandon was watching footage of the 1996 Olympics and was struck by the way Muhammad Ali’s movement was affected by his Parkinson’s disease. The visual stuck with him and led to research and then invention as he developed the OneRing, a device to monitor Parkinson’s patients. Tandon is running a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund his project.
Tandon hopes that the project can bring the monitoring ring into local clinics and also increase awareness about the role of technology as a health aid. The user wears a ring during the day and information about movement is transferred through low energy Bluetooth to an iOS app. A physician can then monitor the information during the day or at a patient’s appointment. Changes over time, reaction to new medication, or tremor patterns can be found using the device.
Acceleration data is taken from the ring and machine learning algorithms compare the data to different issues associated with Parkinson’s. Bradykinesia, dyskinesia, and tremor can be found through the device thanks to acceleration training data provided to Utkarsh by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease. Historical data is also recorded showing movement severity at different dates and different times during the day.
This project is small in scope, intended to first build between ten and fifteen rings and deploy at a local Parkinson’s clinic. Only ten rings were available to the public through the Kickstarter campaign but the OneRing – Artificial Intelligence for Parkinson’s Disease app is available for free on the Apple app store. Utkarsh has done amazing work already on the project but the fact that he is a sophomore in high school is incredible. He hopes that further design iterations can shrink the PCB and make a wearable that users can wear with minimum effort.