The Chief Medical Officer and Director of Global Healthcare and Non-profits at Amazon Web Services, Dr Rowland Illing, has said that the immense computational capacity of the cloud, along with the accelerating capabilities of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, is offering new hope in the speedy diagnosis and improved treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

Illing, who made this known in a press statement issued on Saturday, noted that up to 15 per cent of Parkinson’s cases can currently be linked to deletions or mutations in people’s genes.

According to the World Health Organisation, PD is a brain condition that causes problems with movement, mental health, sleep, pain, and other health issues.

PD worsens over time and has no cure, but therapies and medicines can reduce symptoms. Common symptoms include tremors, painful muscle contractions, and difficulty speaking.

“When the British surgeon James Parkinson first described ‘shaking palsy’ in 1817, he did so by observing the way patients’ bodies moved. Two centuries on, most specialists still rely on physical symptoms to diagnose Parkinson’s disease. In other words, they are operating largely in the dark.

“This lack of understanding contributes significantly to the growing health burden of Parkinson’s, with over 10 million people living with the disease and incidence doubling every 25 years, according to the World Health Organisation.

“However, the immense computational capacity of the cloud and the accelerating capabilities of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are offering new hope. By transforming our understanding of the brain and how Parkinson’s impacts it, they can speed up diagnosis, develop new treatments, and better empower patients themselves,” the expert stated.

He explained that PD is a progressive disease caused by the loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain, and the condition worsens over time.

He noted that because the brain relies on dopamine for motor control, it leads to physical symptoms such as stiffness, decreased arm movement, reduced blinking or facial expression, and involuntary shaking or tremors when the body is at rest.

He added that it can also cause less obvious symptoms such as low blood pressure, cognitive impairment, depression, anxiety, hallucinations, and delusions, as research shows that people with Parkinson’s are more likely to develop some forms of dementia, further broadening the impact of the disease.

“Because researchers don’t know what causes patients’ dopamine-producing neurons to begin shutting down, they are unable to treat the root cause. Instead, most treatments have focused on replacing the lost dopamine. This can temporarily restore motor function, but it cannot stop the progression of the disease. It also makes misdiagnosis a serious issue, as treatments that boost dopamine and help with Parkinson’s symptoms can worsen those of similar neurological conditions such as dementia or essential tremor.



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