Motion capture suits of the types used in films, including The Lord Of The Rings and Avatar, are being used to track the progress of movement-impairing diseases.
This could halve the time and drastically reduce costs involved in developing drugs to treat the conditions in clinical trials.
The suits have been used to capture the movements of actors, which can then be used to make computer generated imagery (CGI) characters move more naturally.
Now they have been paired with an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to measure and analyse the onset of conditions that affect the movement of sufferers.
In tests the researchers used the system, which has been a decade in the making, to track the severity of two currently incurable genetic disorders - Friedreich's ataxia (FA) and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD).
Results published in two separate studies found that they were able to determine severity twice as quickly as expert doctors.
The system could potentially be used to track any condition affecting movement, including ones affecting the brain and central nervous system, muscles, bones, heart and lungs, as well as some psychiatric disorders.
AI can check progression of a disease quicker than human clinicians
Getting the right treatment and support in place usually depends on tracking the severity of the disease and predicting its progression.
This is currently done by asking patients to carry out standardised movements in a clinical setting and measuring their speed and accuracy.
This can be a long, drawn-out process that delays the patient being able to access vital treatment.
Dr Valeria Ricotti, of Great Ormond Street Institute for Child Health told BBC News that the development could have an “absolutely massive” impact on the diagnosis and development of new drugs for a wide range of diseases.
Professor Aldo Faisal of Imperial College said that the team’s approach detected subtle movements that human clinicians are not able to pick up on.
A team at Imperial tested the motion suit on patients with FA, finding that the AI could accurately predict a worsening of the condition over a period of 12 months.
This is about half the time it would usually take a human expert.
A separate team from Great Ormond Street tested the tech on patients with DMD and found that accurate predictions could also be made much more quickly.
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