A team of neuroscientists and engineers from RMIT University in Melbourne has developed a test using a voice app that can diagnose Parkinson’s disease and severe COVID-19 using only a person’s voice commands

Millions of people worldwide have Parkinson’s, which is a degenerative brain condition that can be challenging to diagnose as symptoms vary among people. Common symptoms include slow movement, tremor, rigidity and imbalance. Currently, Parkinson’s is diagnosed through an evaluation by a neurologist that can take up to 90 minutes.

Powered by artificial intelligence, the smartphone App records a person’s voice and takes just 10 seconds to reveal whether they may to have Parkinson’s disease and should be referred to a neurologist.

Lead researcher Professor Dinesh Kumar, from RMIT’s School of Engineering, said the easy-to-use screening test made it ideal to use in a national screening program.

He said the team had developed a similar test for people with COVID-19 to reveal whether they need clinical attention, including hospitalisation.

“Early detection, diagnosis and treatment could help manage these illnesses, and so making screening faster and more accessible is critical,” says Kumar

“This research will allow a non-contact, easy-to-use and low-cost test that can be performed routinely anywhere in the world, where the clinicians can monitor their patients remotely.

“It could also promote a community-wide screening program, reaching people who might not otherwise seek treatment until it’s too late.”

The research results are published in the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine, IEEE Access and Computers in Biology and Medicine.

How the technology behind the voice app works

People with Parkinson’s disease have a voice change as a result of rigidity, tremor, and slowness (known as bradykinesia). Although expert clinicians can identify these symptoms, assessment can be difficult because of the large natural variations in people’s voices.

According to Kumar previous attempts to develop a computerised voice assessment to detect Parkinson’s had been inaccurate due to these significant differences in people’s voices

“We recorded the voices of Parkinson’s patients saying ‘A,’ ‘O,’ and ‘M’ to compare with a control group saying the same sounds, which is similar to the Hindu meditation chant.” says Kumar

Co-researcher Dr Quoc Cuong Ngo, from RMIT’s School of Engineering, said the new technology was faster and better than any similar AI-based approach.

“Our screening test App can measure, with great precision, how the voice of someone with Parkinson’s disease or person at high risk of hospitalisation from COVID-19 is different from healthy people,” says Ngo

The work was carried out in cooperation with the Technical University of Košice in Slovakia, the University of Surabaya in Indonesia, and Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology in Bangladesh. The research findings were published in several peer-reviewed journals.