Wearable sensors and smarter measures: Oxford and Clario push Parkinson’s research forward

The University of Oxford’s NeuroMetrology Lab has teamed up with Clario to use a research grade wearable called Opal to track movement in Parkinson’s with far more precision than routine clinic tests. The collaboration focuses on building reliable digital measures of gait, balance and everyday mobility that can spot small changes sooner and support better trials of new treatments. The announcement was made on 6 October 2025. Opal sensors are small devices that people wear on the body during short tasks in clinic or during normal daily life at home. They capture rich data on how someone walks, turns, stands and keeps steady. The Oxford team and Clario plan to combine these recordings with machine learning models so that tiny shifts in movement can be picked up before they are obvious to the eye. The goal is to turn this into trusted digital endpoints that regulators and sponsors can use in clinical trials, so progress is measured continuously and objectively rather than in occasional snapshot visits. The approach builds on earlier Oxford work with Opal which showed that a three minute in clinic assessment could forecast a person’s future risk of falls with high accuracy. Results reported by the group indicate prediction rates of up to ninety two percent two years ahead and seventy eight percent five years ahead, highlighting how precise movement data can help clinicians focus support before falls happen. The new partnership takes this further by testing both short, structured tasks and passive real world monitoring to create measures that reflect daily life. Clario, which integrates the Opal system into research platforms, has previously reported that Opal based measures can detect Parkinson’s motor progression faster than standard clinical rating scales. Capturing this change earlier could shorten studies, reduce patient burden and make it easier to see whether a new therapy is helping. The Oxford collaboration is designed to refine these methods and bring them into mainstream trials. For people living with Parkinson’s, this line of work points to practical benefits. If clinicians can track mobility with objective sensors rather than relying only on periodic scoring, they can tailor care sooner, identify rising fall risk and test treatments on measures that matter in daily life. The university’s news post sums up the intent clearly. This is about advancing the use of wearables to measure motor symptoms and disease progression with more precision, and about turning that precision into better research and, in time, better care.