SERG Technologies, a spin-out from Imperial College London, is leading an 18-month project to develop SERG-MED, a digital wearable platform designed to continuously monitor the full range of symptoms experienced by people with Parkinson's disease (PwP). The aim is to improve clinical decision-making and patient outcomes. Parkinson's prevalence in the UK has risen by 18% in the past five years, affecting 145,000 people in the UK and 10 million globally. As the condition progresses, its motor and cognitive symptoms worsen, severely reducing quality of life and independence.
Despite the NHS spending over £300 million annually on Parkinson's care, a recent Parkinson's UK audit raised concerns about the quality of treatment, contributing to societal costs of over £2.9 billion per year. Parkinson's is a highly complex condition, with motor symptoms fluctuating throughout the day, requiring frequent and personalised treatment adjustments. Continuous monitoring is essential for effective disease management, yet current assessments are limited in scope. Patients typically see a neurologist for only 19 minutes and a specialist nurse for just 24 minutes per year. This often leads to 50% of PwP experiencing serious side effects or receiving ineffective treatment within five years, rising to 80% within ten years.
No existing product on the market or in development can effectively assess muscle rigidity, a critical symptom in understanding the integrity of a patient's motor system. This gap in current solutions means they cannot provide a complete picture of a patient's condition, reducing their clinical value. Additionally, technical limitations, accuracy issues, and high costs prevent existing solutions from being used for long-term, remote, and passive monitoring.
SERG Technologies builds on six years of research in Imperial College London's Biomechatronics Lab and four years of field testing. The company has developed a patented system capable of uniquely quantifying all major Parkinson's symptoms, including rigidity. This system supports standardised, multidisciplinary collaboration, with data shared via dashboards, enabling clinicians to make more informed decisions.
In collaboration with St George's Hospital London, a pilot study involving 35 patients will be conducted to assess the system's feasibility. The statistical relevance of the study will be independently evaluated by Imperial College's Biostatistics Department, and the results will inform power calculations for a larger randomised controlled trial (RCT).
SERG-MED offers the potential to revolutionise Parkinson's treatment through closed-loop management, this innovative approach represents a significant shift in Parkinson's care, with the potential to improve patient outcomes and optimise NHS resources.
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SERG Technologies (Imperial College spin-out), in partnership with St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, propose a 15-month industrial research programme focused on developing and evidencing the technical capabilities of our current offering, SERG-one, a patented TRL4 telemedicine, symptomatic assessment device, to become the clinical assessment arm of a novel closed-loop treatment solution for motor symptoms of Parkinson's.
**PD-CL-REHAB - Closed-loop rehabilitation for Parkinson's Disease and wider neurological disorders**
An 18-month industrial research project in which SERG Technologies Ltd, in partnership with chartered neurological physiotherapists from the LV Rehabilitation Centre and the Neuromuscular Rehabilitation Technology Network at Imperial College London, will develop the first closed-loop, at-home, rehabilitation platform for Parkinson's Disease and wider neurological disorders - PD-Rehab.
NuRO.sense - An intelligent wearable to assess and monitor the motor symptoms of neurodegeneration
SERG Technologies Ltd has developed a new, revolutionary, wearable sensor suite for the investigation and monitoring of muscular rigidity and underlying neural signals in Parkinson's Disease (PD). Our patented technology has the potential to be employed in telemedicine for automated accurate assessment of PD symptom severity enabling vulnerable people that cannot visit their neurologist due to the COVID-19 pandemic to be independent and maintain their quality of living. Our system is reliable, user-and-doctor-friendly, and unique as it is the only device capable of an assessment of all cardinal PD symptoms within the current framework of current NHS neurological tests. In addition, it can be utilised as a future means of continuous closed-loop deep brain stimulation (DBS) for patients with PD, providing a foundation for a range of ground-breaking, new, neurostimulation treatments.