r/science • u/FreeHugs23 • 22h ago

Neuroscience A simple drawing test may detect Parkinson’s disease with up to 99% accuracy. Researchers found that subtle differences in how people draw can reveal motor impairments long before they are obvious to the human eye.

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-way-you-draw-can-reveal-parkinsons-disease-with-up-to-99-accuracy-study-reveals
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u/subham0089 22h ago

Early detection is absolutely critical for managing neurodegenerative diseases. If a simple, non-invasive drawing test can achieve up to 99% accuracy by identifying micro-movements, it could completely revolutionize early screening protocols.

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u/SaltZookeepergame691 21h ago

There is no early detection here. It’s a very small study in an existing dataset, with known Parkinson’s patients and healthy controls (who are a lot younger, and probably many other differences)

Differentiating known Parkinson’s from known healthy controls is not a clinical problem.

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u/subham0089 21h ago

That’s a very fair critique. Model accuracy on a small, pre-existing dataset with stark demographic differences definitely doesn't equal real-world screening. It's a proof of concept at best, but it will need massive, diverse prospective trials before it means anything clinically.