SP22: Simulated PD Study

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder with resting tremor (RT) being it's most common motor symptom. This study aimed to determine the features of wrist velocity and acceleration that can be used as objective, reliable, and sensitive detectors of RT. Forty-five healthy young adults imitated RT in both hands after observing a video of RT in a person with PD. Inertial measurement units placed on both wrists recorded the linear acceleration and angular velocity, which were used to calculate linear velocity and angular acceleration. Power spectral density analysis of the velocities and accelerations during the simulated tremor showed peak tremor frequency in the range of 2.0-7.2 Hz, similar to the ranges reported in PD patients (3.5-7.5 Hz). A Support Vector Machine classifier successfully differentiated between the tremor condition and a non-tremor condition (with participants holding their wrists steady) using the features of the spectral densities of the wrist kinematics with 97.2% accuracy. These findings suggest a simple method for providing objective measures of RT. Future work will focus on validating this method in PD patients and developing objective measures to supplement existing clinical measures of progression of PD.