Mobile Devices and Mobile Applications Used in Parkinson's Disease

Current demographic trends indicate that there is a growing number of older population groups worldwide, which is associated with an increase of chronic neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, which burden the country's healthcare system. Therefore there is an urgent call for developing efficient strategies which could reduce the healthcare costs and meet the demand of older ill people at affordable cost. One of such approaches is the use of mobile devices and applications. The purpose of this study is to explore mobile devices and/or mobile applications which are used in the assessment, management and treatment of Parkinson's disease. The methods used in this study include a literature review of available sources found in the world's acknowledged databases Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and ScienceDirect, as well as the methods of comparison and evaluation of the findings from the selected studies were applied. The findings show that mobile devices and smart-based apps can serve as an appropriate assessment, diagnostic, monitoring and treatment tools for patients with PD since they are relatively cost-effective, reliable and non-invasive. However, more research has to be done in the area of their use in the treatment of PD symptoms, as well as more randomized controlled trials with larger samples of subjects should be conducted.