Preliminary evaluation of SensHand V1 in assessing motor skills performance in Parkinson disease

• Main Authors: Cavallo, Filippo, Esposito, Dario, Rovini, Erika, Aquilano, Michela, Carrozza, Maria Chiara, Dario, Paolo, Maremmani, Carlo, Bongioanni, Paolo
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Biomechanical Phenomena; Biomechanics; Disease Progression; Diseases; Feature extraction; Female; Hand - physiopathology; hand motion recognition; Hand rehabilitation; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Motor Skills - physiology; Parkinson Disease - diagnosis; Parkinson Disease - physiopathology; Parkinson Disease - rehabilitation; Parkinson's disease; Robotics - instrumentation; Sensors; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted - instrumentation; smart gloves; Sociology; Task Performance and Analysis; Thumb
• ISSN: 1945-7898; 1945-7901
• DOI: 10.1109/ICORR.2013.6650466

Nowadays, the increasing old population 65+ as well as the pace imposed by work activities lead to a high number of people that have particular injuries for limbs. In addition to persistent or temporary disabilities related to accidental injuries we must take into account that part of the population suffers from motor deficits of the hands due to stroke or diseases of various clinical nature. The most recurrent technological solutions to measure the rehabilitation or skill motor performance of the hand are glove-based devices, able to faithfully capture the movements of the hand and fingers. This paper presents a system for hand motion analysis based on 9-axis complete inertial modules and dedicated microcontroller which are fixed on fingers and forearm. The technological solution presented is able to track the patients' hand motions in real-time and then to send data through wireless communication reducing the clutter and the disadvantages of a glove equipped with sensors through a different technological structure. The device proposed has been tested in the study of Parkinson's disease.