Engineering Commons^™

A Wearable Mechatronic Device For Hand Tremor Monitoring And Suppression: Development And Evaluation, Yue Zhou

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Tremor, one of the most disabling symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), significantly affects the quality of life of the individuals who suffer from it. These people live with difficulties with fine motor tasks, such as eating and writing, and suffer from social embarrassment. Traditional medicines are often ineffective, and surgery is highly invasive and risky. The emergence of wearable technology facilitates an externally worn mechatronic tremor suppression device as a potential alternative approach for tremor management. However, no device has been developed for the suppression of finger tremor that has been validated on a human.

It has been reported in …

Investigation Of Visual Perceptions In Parkinson's Disease And The Development Of Disease Monitoring Software, Matthew Bernardinis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Non-motor Parkinson’s Disease (PD) symptoms are substantial factors of PD arising throughout disease stages, yet their diagnosis and monitoring remain a challenge. Sensory abnormalities in PD occur across sensory systems and disease stages, contributing to disease-related impairments. However, the extent of symptoms is unknown, with inadequate monitoring and treatment options furthering disease management difficulties. The current work studies movement-independent visual perceptions of time, displacement and velocity in PD patients across disease stages using levodopa, deep brain stimulation (DBS), or no PD therapy. Perceptual tasks were conducted using a computer-generated graphical device designed with a focus on simplicity and flexibility. Perception …

Quantifying The Outcomes Of A Virtual Reality (Vr)-Based Gamified Neck Rehabilitation, Shahan Salim

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Neck pain is a major global public health concern and adds a significant financial burden to both the healthcare system as well as people suffering from it. Additionally, it presents measurement and evaluation challenges for clinicians as well as adherence challenges and treatment barriers for the patients. We have developed a virtual reality (VR)-based video game that can be used to capture outcomes that may aid in the assessment and treatment of neck pain. We investigated: (i) performance metrics of overall accuracy, accuracy based on movement difficulty, duration, and total envelope of movement; (ii) stability across sessions; (iii) accuracy across …

Remote Navigation And Contact-Force Control Of Radiofrequency Ablation Catheters, Daniel Gelman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common and clinically significant heart rhythm disorder, is characterized by rapid and irregular electrical activity in the upper chambers resulting in abnormal contractions. Radiofrequency (RF) cardiac catheter ablation is a minimally invasive curative treatment that aims to electrically correct signal pathways inside the atria to restore normal sinus rhythm. Successful catheter ablation requires the complete and permanent elimination of arrhythmogenic signals by delivering transmural RF ablation lesions contiguously near and around key cardiac structures. These procedures are complex and technically challenging and, even when performed by the most skilled physician, nearly half of patients undergo …

Evaluation Of Individual Finger Forces During Activities Of Daily Living In Healthy Individuals And Those With Hand Arthritis, Michael Riddle

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Hand-Osteoarthritis (H-OA) leads to pain, loss of grip strength, and decreased hand function. Current treatment for H-OA involves joint protection programs (JPP) which seek to reduce joint loading during activity. The use of wearable technology to measure hand forces during activity has the potential to determine the effectiveness of JPP. The objective of this thesis was to develop and validate a method of directly measuring finger forces during the performance of activities of daily living, and then use that system to measure the envelope of hand forces during activity in healthy individuals and in patients with H-OA. A commercially-available capacitive …

Development Of A Force-Based Ream Vector Measurement System For Glenoid Reaming Simulation, David Axford

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Glenoid reaming is a technically challenging step during total shoulder arthroplasty surgery that may be improved through frequent practice and exposure to simulation training. At our institution, a vibration haptic glenoid reaming simulator is being developed that simulates the vibrations felt during glenoid reaming. This thesis presents the development of a force-based reamer vector measurement system that allows the simulator to measure the user’s net applied force and reamer angle of approach. This capability allows for the simulation of eccentric reaming maneuvers commonly used to adjust the glenoid orientation. The system error was characterized and evaluated using a robot to …

Tissue Equivalent Gellan Gum Gel Materials For Clinical Mri And Radiation Dosimetry, Pawel Brzozowski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Hydrogels contain high amount of water allowing their use as surrogates to human tissues with specific properties that can be tuned by additives. Gellan gum is a gel-forming material of interest and is a replacement for other common gelling agent with limited use as a tissue phantom. Therefore, this thesis examines the application of gellan gum gels as a novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) phantom with a design of experiments model to obtain tunable properties. The analysis was extended to include mechanical and electrical properties with a separate design of experiment. Gels doped with synthesized superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) …