[234] Condition monitoring of Parkinson’s pathological tremors for functional electrical stimulation control

The aim of this work is to identify the correlation between accelerometric and electromyographic signals and the difference between healthy patients (control group) and patients affected by Parkinson’s disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET).
The vibrational phenomena studied in this work relates to the forearm and hand vibration that are monitored by means of surface electromyographic (SEMG) and accelerometer sensors with the purpose of detecting and recognising the dynamic properties of an onset of pathological tremor in patients affected by PD and ET.
PD and ET present a typical characteristic vibration frequency between 3 Hz and 12 Hz; this property is monitored in outpatient tests.
Two condition monitoring systems to monitor the tremor have been developed and described in depth: the former system allows data monitoring to be performed with a portable lightweight microcontroller board powered by low-voltage batteries (5 V) and the latter is based on a CompactRio data acquisition system with a chassis controller module designed for data input, controlling and output generation, powered by a 12 V battery. The CRio system provides an algorithm to generate functional electrical stimulation signals for control purposes. Experimental measurement data relating to healthy control subjects are presented, together with data relating to subjects with Parkinson’s disease. Data are analysed and results are presented.