Wearable Accelerometer and Gyroscope Sensors for Estimating the Severity of Essential Tremor

Background: Several validated clinical scales measure the severity of essential tremor (ET). Their assessments are subjective and can depend on familiarity and training with scoring systems. Method: We propose a multi-modal sensing using a wearable inertial measurement unit for estimating scores on the Fahn-Tolosa-Marin tremor rating scale (FTM) and determine the classification accuracy within the tremor type. 17 ET participants and 18 healthy controls were recruited for the study. Two movement disorder neurologists who were blinded to prior clinical information viewed video recordings and scored the FTM. Participants drew a guided Archimedes spiral while wearing an inertial measurement unit placed at the mid-point between the lateral epicondyle of the humerus and the anatomical snuff box. Acceleration and gyroscope recordings were analyzed. The ratio of the power spectral density between frequency bands 0.5-4 Hz and 4-12 Hz, and the sum of power spectrum density over the entire spectrum of 2-74 Hz, for both accelerometer and gyroscope data, were computed. FTM was estimated using regression model and classification using SVM was validated using the leave-one-out method. Results: Regression analysis showed a moderate to good correlation when individual features were used, while correlation was high (r(2) = 0.818) when suitable features of the gyro and accelerometer were combined. The accuracy for two-class classification of the combined features using SVM was 91.42% while for four-class it was 68.57%. Conclusion: Potential applications of this novel wearable sensing method using a wearable Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) include monitoring of ET and clinical trials of new treatments for the disorder.