World Parkinson's Day 2025: Smartwatches to Sialorrhea Clinics in Cardiff and Vale UHB

10 April 2025

This Friday, 11 April, marks World Parkinson’s Day 2025 – a day to raise awareness, a time to highlight the support available and an opportunity to thank the healthcare professionals within Cardiff and Vale University Health Board who are finding effective ways to help people with Parkinson’s manage their condition.

Approximately 8,300 people in Wales currently live with Parkinson’s, a progressive neurological condition that results from insufficient dopamine in the brain. With both motor symptoms like tremor, stiffness, slowness of movement and less commonly recognised non-motor symptoms such as sleep disturbances, memory problems, constipation amongst others, effective management of Parkinson's requires a collaborative approach from a range of healthcare professionals to help people manage the condition.

The Parkinson’s Service within Cardiff and Vale UHB (pictured) includes not just consultants and nurse specialists, but also dieticians, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and a psychology team, consisting of a clinical psychologist, assistant psychologist and a trainee psychologist, working together to provide personalised holistic care.

Dr Biju Mohamed, Consultant Geriatrician and co-lead of the Parkinson’s Service at Cardiff and Vale UHB with Dr Chris Thomas said: “Here in Cardiff and Vale, we are one of the few units in the country that have specialised Parkinson's MDT and psychology support embedded within the team. This allows us to support People with Parkinson's (PwP) by enhancing education, offering early personalised interventions and opportunities to participate in clinical trials resulting in better outcomes”

Dr Ruth Lewis-Morton, a Clinical Psychologist with the Parkinson's Service at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board said: “My experience of being a psychologist with people who have Parkinson's is that I'm often amazed at the inbuilt resilience and determination people have to improve their situation. People are prepared to face challenges collaboratively with our team, despite significant adversity and often being at their most vulnerable.

Ruth continued: “We are very fortunate within Cardiff and Vale UHB to have psychological approaches embedded within the team culture and the service more widely, when working with people with Parkinson’s.

As a Parkinson’s team, we have a strong research interest and have recently been awarded a grant to further understand the psychological needs of people living with Parkinson’s and their care partners. We prioritise the involvement of people with Parkinson’s and their care partners in guiding our research, service development and delivery, as we view people’s lived experience as being crucially important to understanding how best to support people.”

Apart from nursing home clinics and virtual clinics, Parkinson's specialist nurses have recently developed ‘Wellbeing Sessions’ in collaboration with people with Parkinson’s and psychology colleagues. These sessions support people newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s to understand it and access relevant resources to be able to self-manage the condition. Ruth said: “The aim is to write up and publish these innovative sessions to disseminate the findings to support other people with Parkinson's.”

Another innovative tool available to Parkinson’s patients in Cardiff and Vale is the Personal KinetiGraph smartwatch. This wearable device tracks movement symptoms, offering the healthcare team deeper insights into each patient’s unique symptoms and enabling a more personalised approach to care. The smartwatch can also be set to remind patients to take their medication and track sleeping patterns.

Another standout initiative is the Sialorrhea Clinic, treating drooling, a common but often overlooked symptom of Parkinson’s. The clinic uses Botox-like injections to alleviate the condition, which has a significant impact on quality of life, self-esteem, and social interaction.

Dr Mohamed said: “We are the only unit in the country running a bespoke Sialorrhea Clinic using injections similar to Botox to try to improve the condition. Dr Jyothi Adenwalla, specialist doctor in the Parkinson’s Service has been able to present this important piece of work in international conferences and also been shortlisted for a national award with Parkinson’s UK”. The clinic has been running since 2021, and patients have reported improved quality of conversations, better sleep and improved confidence.

One Parkinson’s patient explained, “Well, I think the most important thing is being able to converse…take part in conversations. That human contact…it helped improve my conversations.”

A carer of a patient shared: “You were always dabbing, but I think it has just made you a little more confident being out and not looking so dribbly.”

Although there is currently no cure for Parkinson’s, the team at Cardiff and Vale UHB is dedicated to resourcing patients and caregivers by providing strategies and treatments to self-manage the condition. Many of these resources are available on the specially curated web app developed in-house and recognised by the Bevan Exemplar award (www.myparkinsons.org.uk). Dr Page and team have recently been awarded a grant from Parkinson's UK to develop the Welsh translation to allow the app to be used across Wales. The feedback has been that the webapp has empowered PwP resulting in increased confidence and better quality of life.

World Parkinson’s Day is a reminder of the challenges people with Parkinson’s face, the treatment options available and the range of healthcare professionals working to support them.