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 …

Parkinson's Freezing Of Gait Device Attachment, Reagan Burns, Sidney Collin, Hadley Rose

Biomedical Engineering

The Freezing of Gait Project aims to design and develop an attachment mechanism for a medical device to help Parkinson’s patients overcome freezing of gait (FOG). The mechanism will allow the device to attach to a variety of canes or walkers, while being easy for Parkinson’s patients to use. It will interface with a device produced by De Oro Devices. The project includes an analysis of current competitive devices, a summary of customer needs, design of experiments to test significant features of the attachment, and project plan. The customer needs are translated to engineering metrics. Failures and mitigation of risks …