Mobile application of finger tapping task assessment for early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease

A mobile application named HLTapper was designed for Android mobile phones to collect and assess real‐time alternating finger tapping movement data such as mean tapping speeds, temporal variations of tapping intervals, horizontal tapping variances, and vertical tapping variances, from built‐in sensors while a subject performs the finger tapping movement task according to directions given through the application interface. The results of a controlled experiment (40 subjects including nine subjects with Parkinson disease, 11 healthy age‐matched subjects, and 20 healthy young subjects) and a discriminant analysis revealed sensitivity of 85.71% and specificity of 91.42%, on an average, which suggests that HLTapper would be useful for early diagnosis and personalised treatment plan adjustments of patients with Parkinson disease.