Manus Neurodynamica Ltd has launched the NeuroMotor Pen (NMP) for low cost, non-invasive diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and clinical outcome assessment, dramatically improving the overall efficiency of the PD pathway in both primary and secondary care.

Diagnosing PD is currently a challenge. Early symptoms are attributable to a range of causes and distinguishing between PD and other neuromotor impairments can be difficult. Conclusive diagnosis can require expensive brain-imaging equipment and specialist expertise. Enabling early and accurate referrals and diagnosis is crucial to give patients access to the range of treatment and therapies available. Early intervention and optimised treatment can slow the progression of the disease, improve quality of life and reduce the health cost burden.

NMP enables a test that detects the early indicators of Parkinson’s (PD) whilst being inexpensive and not requiring specialist expertise for administration. Patients complete simple writing and drawing tasks with NMP to automatically derive ‘biomarkers’ that provide objective information about movement abnormalities. The product supports diagnosis and monitoring of PD and other impairments with electronic record keeping. The records provide an accurate and objective alternative to Unified Parkinson’s disease ratings scale part III for motor assessment (UPDRS)

NMP helps specialists to increase certainty of differential diagnosis and reduce cost compared to DaTSCAN assessment while at the same time improving efficiency. Cost savings per diagnosis between £200 to £2000 (for complex cases involving brain scanning) can be established. In triage use, NMP will help GPs increase referral accuracy and save on costs for referrals. For improved treatment, disease severity can be conveniently monitored over time with more objectively and higher accuracy than with any other methods. Savings on clinical outcome assessment can be made with NMP of £55 (for neurology follow up appointment) to £500 (for complex tremor assessments).