Tencent teams up with British tech firm to provide medical care

The system which is being developed in collaboration with the London-based Medopad will remotely monitor patients with the disorder using smartphones.

A logo of Tencent is pictured on the rooftop of its headquarters in Shenzhen city, south China's Guangdong province, 4 December 2017.

It will also incorporate artificial intelligence which will score strength and movement tests of patients as well as translate video from smartphones into graphs that evaluate their performance.

The collaboration is hoping to cut down the amount of time it will take to diagnose Parkinson’s from 30 minutes to three minutes.

Dr Wei Fan, head of Tencent Medical AI Lab, said: “Tencent provides the AI technology and capabilities for the video analysis of Parkinson’s disease motor function which will be used in Medopad’s mobile medical application.

“This technology can help promote early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, screening, and daily evaluations of key functions.”

The app will give doctors easier access to their patients without having to bring them out their homes.

They will also be able to set new drug doses, monitor and modify patient care all from the tips of the patient’s fingers.

“The goal of Tencent and Medopad’s collaboration is to help expand the remit of AI-powered movement assessment from sport and exercise to medicine and to reduce the cost of motor function assessment,” said Dr Wei Fan.

Medopad already has a number of apps that assist doctors in treating patients such as one that allows doctors to replicate strength and movement tests and another that determines fine hand movements.

Dan Vahdat, CEO and founder of Medopad, said: “Our partnership with Tencent comes from a shared vision to change the future of healthcare as we know it.

“In combining Medopad’s medical expertise and Tencent’s technical capabilities, we hope to provide the technology needed to support clinicians to predict preventable complications for people with Parkinson’s disease.”