TapVis: A Data Visualization Approach for Assessment of Alternating Tapping Performance in Patients with Parkinson's Disease

Abstract

Advancements in telemedicine have been helpful for frequent monitoring of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) from remote locations and assessment of their individual symptoms and treatment-related complications. These data can be useful for helping clinicians to interpret symptom states and individually tailor the treatments by visualizing the physiological information collected by sensor-based systems. In this paper we present a visualization metaphor that represents symptom information of PD patients during tapping tests performed with a smartphone. The metaphor has been developed and evaluated with a clinician. It enabled the clinician to observe fine motor impairments and identify motor fluctuations regarding several movement aspects of patients that perform the tests from their homes.