Design of a stabilisation platform for Parkinson’s disease patient

Abstract

There are an increased number of patients all over the world suffering from postural tremors and rest tremors, the types of tremors associated with Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Currently, there is no cure for such disease and patients have to deal with their condition to continue their life normally with the existing of some helpful instruments. This work presents a self-stabilising Parkinson’s disease (PD) Tray (platform) that can help them to carry objects that they hold with their hand. The proposed design includes a mechanical platform and en electronic system to control the tray and inhibits any vibrations of the base plate of the tray. An algorithm was developed that would take positional data from an Inertia movement sensors IMU, compute angles in degrees from its Euler angle raw data and then use those angles to control three servo motors in a direction counter to the changes in the IMU’s position. The platform, was capable of stabilising the base of the tray such that objects placed in it would not be dropped. The tray was tested on simulating conditions and the result should that the mean absolute value of the acceleration values in X and Y directions were reduced from 2.23 m/sec² to 0.26 m/sec² in the X direction and from 1.41 m/sec² to 0.34 m/sec² in the Y direction.

Keywords:

• Parkinson disease tremor
• tremor stabilisation platform
• rest tremor

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is partially supported by Abu Dhabi University’s, Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.