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A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#21

Post by cperciva »

FlyingLawnmower wrote: post #5

Can anyone with a medical background chime in with some simple theory about why pulsed vibrations are so effective? This is incredibly exciting work.

why pulsed vibrations are so effective

Vibrating shoes have been shown to be useful for helping elderly populations avoid falls; their diminished sensory acuity makes it hard for them to feel the differential pressure which indicates that they are starting to fall, but adding noise results in the sensory threshold being crossed.

I'd presume that the muscle overstimulation which causes characteristic twitching/jerking is being suppressed by improved sensation of pressure.

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#22

Post by jshevek »

erlehmann_ wrote: post #12

> As part of her work, Zhang researched the root cause of tremors. She spent six months, off and on, building prototypes. She sometimes worked in her London home, soldering wires to PC boards and tinkering with coin cell motors to create vibrations. She tested early versions with four other people with Parkinson’s, producing promising results for three, spurring the idea forward, she says. This paragraph reads like t…

This placement/voting pattern is not abnormal, IME - particularly as different child comments are left.

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#23

Post by rblatz »

0xFFC wrote: post #4

I don't know. Is this normal to cry when you see something like this. Or I have to go to psychiatrist especially considering I have symptoms of BPD.

It's normal to cry when viewing something like this, but if you do suspect you may have mental health issues please please go to a doctor to have it checked out. You could be suffering for no good reason. In fact you may not realize the extent you are suffering until you start treatment and realize that you didn't have to feel that way.

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#24

Post by badminton1 »

cperciva wrote: post #15
elorant wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can this be a PR piece? For starters, there isn't even a product. And most important, this is Microsoft, not some up and coming start-up that's craving for exposure. Microsoft is a behemoth when it comes to ad spending. If they had a product to market they wouldn't need some native advertising article, they'd go in guns blazing.

Microsoft is actively rebranding itself from "evil megacorporation" to "innovative doer of good".

Like "Microsoft Except that Microsoft used to collect 2 billion dollars in patents from Linux based product vendors. They totally "<3" open source.

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#25

Post by obstinate »

erlehmann_ wrote: post #12

> As part of her work, Zhang researched the root cause of tremors. She spent six months, off and on, building prototypes. She sometimes worked in her London home, soldering wires to PC boards and tinkering with coin cell motors to create vibrations. She tested early versions with four other people with Parkinson’s, producing promising results for three, spurring the idea forward, she says. This paragraph reads like t…

Yeah, I will say that I downvoted you. Your expectations (source code, that the results would be documented to your satisfaction after a trial of size N=1) seem unreasonable to me, to the extent that I personally think it is downvote worthy. I don't think, "where's the source code," contributes to the site, especially in situations where one would not reasonably expect to have access to it.

----

I have definitely seen the pattern where something I say initially gets downvoted, or upvoted, then the reverse happens later. It seems at a minimum that there might be a difference between the populations of people who read a story soon after it's posted and long after it's posted. It wouldn't surprise me if different sorts of comments appeal to these different groups, and that's ignoring the content of replies.

Personally I would suggest not worrying about it too much, and doing your best to make comments that seem good to you. For a long time, I actually had a userscript that eliminated the fading style that gets applied to comments, and also hid karma and points. In some ways, that makes using the site a little less stressful, because you can worry a bit less about what others think.

Edit: this comment is a good example of one that initially received several upvotes, but is now negative. ;)

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#26

Post by cpncrunch »

FlyingLawnmower wrote: post #5

Can anyone with a medical background chime in with some simple theory about why pulsed vibrations are so effective? This is incredibly exciting work.

Well, we don't actually know if the device itself is even effective. The placebo effect has a very large effect in Parkinson's treatments due to it being caused by low dopamine (and dopamine is released when you are excited about something).

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#27

Post by noir_lord »

cperciva wrote: post #21
FlyingLawnmower wrote: post #5

Can anyone with a medical background chime in with some simple theory about why pulsed vibrations are so effective? This is incredibly exciting work.

why pulsed vibrations are so effective Vibrating shoes have been shown to be useful for helping elderly populations avoid falls; their diminished sensory acuity makes it hard for them to feel the differential pressure which indicates that they are starting to fall, but adding noise results in the sensory threshold being crossed. I'd presume that the muscle overstimulation which causes characteristic twitching/jerking…

Interesting, I have syringomyelia (cavity in the spine that presses on the spinal cord), I'm lucky in that on the scale of "I'm fucked" to "I'm asymptomatic" I'm far closer to the latter but one of the side effects is decreased nerve acuity, worse some days than others.

Re: A prototype watch, raising hope for Parkinson’s

#29

Post by zevv »

erlehmann_ wrote: post #12

> As part of her work, Zhang researched the root cause of tremors. She spent six months, off and on, building prototypes. She sometimes worked in her London home, soldering wires to PC boards and tinkering with coin cell motors to create vibrations. She tested early versions with four other people with Parkinson’s, producing promising results for three, spurring the idea forward, she says. This paragraph reads like t…

I have a nagging feeling about this project as well. It is simply too good to be true: first we see a lone engineer fiddling with some wires on a prototyping board, and a few months later poof the girl can write again.

She is defying years and years of experience by a large number of experts in the field, this just does not sound realistic.

Why is this 'breakthrough' presented as the effort of an individual? The only reason I can think of is that MS is trying to show the world what Good People they are, and showing the long and hard work of a large team of engineers is just not sexy.

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