Parameter Extraction for Tremor Signals

Tremor is an involuntary movement of limbs that occurs with certain neurological disorders. The neurological disorders include Parkinson's disease, Huntington disease, spino cerebellar degenerations, etc., In all these diseases the limbs of the patient move involuntarily and rhythmically. It can affect any part of the body either one side or both the sides symmetrically. The neuro physician during the assessment of the patient depends on video-grapy or Electromyography or both. Even then the physician does not get the complete information, as these techniques are very primitive, apart from being uneconomical. Also they require lot of time for recording and analysis. Even the information preservation also becomes difficult. In certain cases, the physician mainly depends on the feedback from the patient. In order to overcome these difficulties and also to reduce the time and even cost, a technique has been proposed and implemented. The technique involves recording the tremor using a tri-axial accelerometer, which can be fastened to the limb, where the measurements need to be recorded. The analog output from the accelerometer is amplified and fed to a microcontroller for onward transmission of the sampled values to PC. In PC a Matlab program acquires these samples and processes the same for amplitude and frequency related information. The data was obtained from 15 patients having various neurological disorders and a set of 10 controlled groups is also considered. Both the group's data have been analyzed and the results are reported.