Ideas change everything

A test for Parkinson's with a phone call

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Max Little |

TEDGlobal 2012

• June 2012

Parkinson's disease affects 6.3 million people worldwide, causing weakness and tremors, but there's no objective way to detect it early on. Yet. Applied mathematician and TED Fellow Max Little is testing a simple, cheap tool that in trials is able to detect Parkinson's with 99 percent accuracy -- in a 30-second phone call.

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Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Parkinson's disease affects 6.3 million people worldwide, causing weakness and tremors, but there's no objective way to detect it early on. Yet. Applied mathematician and TED Fellow Max Little is testing a simple, cheap tool that in trials is able to detect Parkinson's with 99 percent accuracy -- in a 30-second phone call.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.

Sign up to participate in a future Parkinson's Voice Initiative trial, by filling out his 2012 survey.

About the speaker

Applied mathematician

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Max Little is a mathematician whose research includes a breakthrough technique to monitor – and potentially screen for – Parkinson's disease through simple voice recordings.

Learn more

How my TED Talk helped me record thousands of voices

In a Q&A, Max Little explains how his talk ignited awareness about his work.

Max Little's published research

Visit Little's website to find out more about his latest biomedical and mathematical findings.

How to turn the iPhone into a medical research tool

Read how Max Little's work in applied mathematics helped develop mPower, a data collection app for Parkinson’s research.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.

Sign up to participate in a future Parkinson's Voice Initiative trial, by filling out his 2012 survey.