A special thank you to General Manager Greer Whitworth and Bar Manager Andy Ralph at the Bay Esplanade Hotel in Paignton for allowing me to use their facilities and to the Paignton Parkinson Group Members who kindly gave their permission and volunteered to give samples of their handwriting.
Copyright © 2018 James Marshall Professional Graphometrist
PD Handwriting Results: Based upon 368 measurements every 10 milliseconds, the results show that out of 14 PD patients only 2 had ‘Micrographia’, one female and one
male.
This contradicts the BMJ Open Access Article (n-1) as shown previously in Figure 1[1] that shows the ages of female and male PD patients. It is clear from the results that PD handwriting varies greatly in its appearance and retains a high degree of variability. However, by measuring HEM it is possible to identify common characteristics of PD. All PD had difficulty in hand movement, eye movement and the Thalamus and brain stem in the brain kept reoccurring in the data. The most interesting data is the presence of Near Infrared (NIR) wavelength through the eye. The average NIR wavelength measured through the handwriting is around 860nm. The data also reveals which eye is defective and that the eyes are not equal in their sight. Indeed, one PD male patient took his glasses off and ask me to look into his eye. In mid-afternoon, bright room with bright sunlight outside, it was noticeable that his pupil in his right eye was wide open as his left pupil was small. Therefore, this suggests that the right is letting in more light energy. The software correctly identified which eye was defective. This evidence is supported by the work of R. Armstrong paper ‘Visual Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease’ Department of Vision Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham 2011[2], that highlights the vision problems that PD patients suffer from.
New Discovery: The results revealed that there are distinct differences between female and male HEM characteristics in PD handwriting. There are 20 male and 20 female HEM characteristics and 40 HEM characteristics in total that belong to PD. This new discovery reveals that Parkinson’s Disease affects men and women differently and that differences can be identified and measured. The evidence of this discovery suggests that Parkinson’s Disease is not a blanket illness that fits all PD patients or produces Micrographia. It suggests that comorbid conditions and side effects of medication affects men and women differently. This evidence also elucidates why there are variations in PD handwriting between men and women. Therefore, PD handwriting is variable and will not always retain the classic sign of Micrographia for men or women. There are many factors that must be taken into account to understand the causes of variability in PD, HEM and handwriting.
[1] Figure 1 Showing Handwriting Samples (James Marshall Graphometrist 2018)
[2] R. Armstrong ‘Visual Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease’ Department of Vision Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham 2011