Towards the Development of a Wearable Tremor Suppression Glove

Abstract

Patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) often associate with tremor. Among other symptoms of PD, tremor is the most aggressive symptom and it is difficult to control with traditional treatments. This thesis presents the assessment of Parkinsonian hand tremor in both the time domain and the frequency domain, the performance of a tremor estimator using different tremor models, and the development of a novel mechatronic transmission system for a wearable tremor suppression device. This transmission system functions as a mechatronic splitter that allows a single power source to support multiple independent applications. Unique features of this transmission system include low power consumption and adjustability in size and weight. Tremor assessment results showed that the hand tremor signal often presents a multi-harmonics pattern. The use of a multi-harmonics tremor model produced a better estimation result than using a monoharmonic tremor model