Microsoft and Novartis have teamed up to develop a system called AssesMS which may fundamentally impact how Multiple Sclerosis patients are monitored and treated.

Patients with MS are typically assessed every three to six months, often by different doctors. There is currently no ability to standardised scoring as it relies on the individual practitioner’s interpretation of the patient’s activity.

The system which uses Microsofts Kinect motion camera, originally developed for the Xbox, together with its learning software, tracks movements, and has the ability to analyse key indicators such as gait and ability to touch one’s nose with a finger in a consistent format.

The ground breaking technology has completed phase one of its testing having analysed 150-300 videos for each movement, assisting the learning software to develop the algorithm to recognise degree of impairement. The next phase will see the project roll out to 5 new clinics and hospitals to gather more data to perfect the algorithm. 

In a recent statement Abigail Sellen, a principle researcher in the Human Experience and Design group at Microsoft’s Cambridge UK lab said "What you don't want to do with these systems is replace the expert. You want to bolster the expert. What we're doing is giving doctors a set of data that they can then weave into their judgment."

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