Implementation of sensing of pathological tremor using surface electromyography and accelerometer for real-time attenuation in LabView

Abstract

Tremor is involuntary rhythmic or semi-rhythmic oscillation of a body part resulting from alternating or simultaneous contractions of antagonistic muscle groups. It is the most common cause of movement disorders. As the proportion of aging people is expected to increase significantly in the future, both social and economic impacts of tremor are expected to increase as well. Therefore, a proper tremor suppression method is ultimately needed.

Currently, there are two main tremor suppression methods, either with medication and surgery or with assistive technology. A work by Widjaja et al. (2009) was dedicated toward the assistive technology for tremor suppression. To sense the tremor, Widjaja’s work used Surface Electromyography (sEMG) and Accelerometer (ACC) and to attenuate the tremor, a Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) was proposed. Widjaja et al. (2009) have successfully implemented a real-time tremor compensation system in C language, which is expected to be deployed in an assistive technology. As working in real-time tremor compensation system is really technically challenging, a programming language with better user interface and refactoring capability is preferred.