Suppressing Parkinson's diseases induced involuntary movements using wearables

摘要

One of the biggest challenge faced by the subjects afflicted with Parkinson's disease (PD) is hand tremor. This prevents them from performing routine tasks such as eating, writing etc. As wearable technologies have evolved recently in terms of miniaturization, low power, low weight etc., It has universal adoption serving various purposes such as Fitness trackers, Smart watchers, personal safety devices etc. In this work, we propose and implemented a low-cost wearable assistive device for Parkinson's Disease patients. The device is developed with the aid of Coin type vibration motor and a micro controller for generating random vibration patterns by using Pulse Width Modulation. The induced vibration on the wrist distracts the patient's brain from the bio-mechanical feedback loop with the hand and reduces the hand tremor and improving the ability to grip or hold an object.