Hand Movement Kinematic Parameters Assessment for Parkinson’s Disease Patients

This work has been devoted for evaluating hand movement activity kinematic parameters of Parkinson's disease patients. Movement signals have been recorded for Parkinson's disease group and control group. Each one of these two groups includes 16 patients. Recording has been done using a Leap Motion sensor. To record hands movement activity signals, 3 exercises have been chosen according to 3 part of the MSD - UPDRS: finger tapping, opening-closing hand movements, and pronation-supination of the hands. For each movement signal, 11 movement parameters have been calculated based on the signal extremum points. Statistically, significant differences between groups for each parameter have been determined using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test. The most significant differences between the groups have been obtained among the following movement parameters: number of movements, average movements speed, average frequency of movements, and standard deviation of frequency. Differences vary depending on the movement exercise. For all the 3 exercises, Parkinson's disease patients show decrease in the speed of exercise, decrease in the frequency of movements and, as a consequence, decrease in the number of movements.