Analysis of Tremor During Grasp Using Ultrasound Imaging: Preliminary Study

This paper investigates the use of ultrasound imaging to characterize tremor during a grasping motion. Ultrasound images were collected from three human participants including an able-bodied participant, a patient with Parkinson’s disease, and a patient with essential tremor. Each human participant was instructed to grasp and hold objects with three different masses in a vertical upright position with an ultrasound probe strapped to their forearm while seated. The images were processed using an ultrasound speckle tracking algorithm to measure muscle strain during the grasping and holding motion. Analysis of the computed strain values showed marked differences in the strain peaks and frequencies between able-bodied participant and the patients with tremor. The detected frequencies depict how the strain measurement changes during the grasping and holding motion. The frequency for tremor participants fall within accepted frequency ranges for Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremor, and thus can be representative of the actual tremor frequency.

[1]  C. Castellini,et al.  Using Ultrasound Images of the Forearm to Predict Finger Positions , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.

[2]  Dimitrios I. Fotiadis,et al.  Assessment of Tremor Activity in the Parkinson’s Disease Using a Set of Wearable Sensors , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine.

[3]  Takeshi Ando,et al.  Analysis of EMG signals of patients with essential tremor focusing on the change of tremor frequency , 2012, 2012 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[4]  M.A. Lubinski,et al.  Speckle tracking methods for ultrasonic elasticity imaging using short-time correlation , 1999, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control.

[5]  C Yiannikas,et al.  The contribution of tremor studies to diagnosis of Parkinsonian and essential tremor: a statistical evaluation , 2002, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience.

[6]  Qiang Zhang,et al.  Prediction of Ankle Dorsiflexion Moment by Combined Ultrasound Sonography and Electromyography , 2019, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.

[7]  Michael S Okun,et al.  Depression symptoms in movement disorders: Comparing Parkinson's disease, dystonia, and essential tremor , 2007, Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society.

[8]  Karl M Newell,et al.  The dynamics of resting and postural tremor in Parkinson's disease , 2000, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[9]  M. Brin,et al.  Consensus Statement of the Movement Disorder Society on Tremor , 2008, Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society.

[10]  M. Hallett,et al.  Consensus Statement on the classification of tremors. from the task force on tremor of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society , 2018, Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society.

[11]  A. Savitzky,et al.  Smoothing and Differentiation of Data by Simplified Least Squares Procedures. , 1964 .

[12]  Mike Fraser,et al.  EchoFlex: Hand Gesture Recognition using Ultrasound Imaging , 2017, CHI.

[13]  Jana Kosecka,et al.  Real-Time Classification of Hand Motions Using Ultrasound Imaging of Forearm Muscles , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[14]  Giuliana Grimaldi,et al.  Neurological Tremor: Sensors, Signal Processing and Emerging Applications , 2010, Sensors.

[15]  Nitin Sharma,et al.  Quantitative Assessment of Changes in Muscle Contractility Due to Fatigue During NMES: An Ultrasound Imaging Approach , 2020, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.