A review of machine learning and deep learning for Parkinson’s disease detection

Millions of people worldwide suffer from Parkinson’s disease (PD), a neurodegenerative disorder marked by motor symptoms such as tremors, bradykinesia, and stiffness. Accurate early diagnosis is crucial for effective management and treatment. This article presents a novel review of Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) techniques for PD detection and progression monitoring, offering new perspectives by integrating diverse data sources. We examine the public datasets recently used in studies, including audio recordings, gait analysis, and medical imaging. We discuss the preprocessing methods applied, the state-of-the-art models utilized, and their performance. Our evaluation included different algorithms such as support vector machines (SVM), random forests (RF), convolutional neural networks (CNN). These algorithms have shown promising results in PD diagnosis with accuracy rates exceeding 99% in some studies combining data sources. Our analysis particularly showcases the effectiveness of audio analysis in early symptom detection and gait analysis, including the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), in monitoring disease progression. Medical imaging, enhanced by DL techniques, has improved the identification of PD. The application of ML and DL in PD research offers significant potential for improving diagnostic accuracy. However, challenges like the need for large and diverse datasets, data privacy concerns, and data quality in healthcare remain. Additionally, developing explainable AI is crucial to ensure that clinicians can trust and understand ML and DL models. Our review highlights these key challenges that must be addressed to enhance the robustness and applicability of AI models in PD diagnosis, setting the groundwork for future research to overcome these obstacles. © The Author(s) 2025.