Tremor Measurer

Tablet Tremor Aquisition v.1.0 - Download

Tablet Tremor Analysis v.1.0 - Download

Introduction

This is a program to record and analyze human tremor. I developed it when I worked at Biolab-UFU as an undergrad student.

The method used to record the tremor is quite simple. It uses a graphic table where the subject draws a spiral. The digital drawing is saved at hard drive to be later analyzed. This technique is called spirography. The idea is to reveal characteristics of the tremor by processing the drawing, which can be treated as a signal. So, this program is all about biologic signal acquisition and processing.

For those unfamiliar with the device, a graphic table is kind of an electronic surface where one can draw with a pen, instead of a mouse. It is usually used by artists, designers, etc. but it can also be used to measure tremor.

If you want know more about this technique, take a look at this article I wrote some years ago:

MIOTTO, G. ; Andrade, A. O. ; Soares, A. B.. Measurement of Tremor Using Digitizing Tablets. In: V Conferência de Estudos em Engenharia Elétrica, 2007, Uberlândia. Proceedings do V CEEL, 2007. Download

Software Description

The software is composed of two modules. One for acquisition and another for analysis. The first was written in C#. It is responsible for recording the drawing. The signal can be saved as .txt or as a .mat (matlab), so that it could be analyzed at whichever application you may have or want to develop. If you don’t have any, you can use the second module. It was written in Matlab and is able to run basic analyzes on both time and frequency domains. These programs and its source codes are available here for download:

Observation: In order to run the acquisition module you must have .NET framework installed in your machine.

If you want to know more about these programs, here is my final work at the graduation course. It explains in details how the software works. Sadly, it is only available in Portuguese.

G. MIOTTO - Medição e análise do tremor humano por meio de mesas digitalizadoras - Faculdade de engenharia elétrica - Universidade Federal de Uberlândia - 2008. Download

Source Code

Feel free to download the code and modify it as you like. But, credits are always welcome.

Tremor Aquisition v.1.0 (Source Code) - Download

Tremor Analysis v.1.0 (Source Code)- Download

Further Reading

This is not specifically about this method of recording tremor, the spirography. It is a paper that I wrote with some colleagues about different methods of recording tremor. But it also discusses the spirography.

Mansur, P.H. ; Cury, L.K. ; Andrade, A. O. ; MIOTTO, G. ; Soares, A. B. ; Naves, E L M . A Review on Techniques for Tremor Recording and Quantification. Critical Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, v. 35, p. 343-362, 2007. Download

Acknowledgments

I must thank Professor Adriano Andrade , PhD. My research adviser.

Also, this study wouldn’t be possible without the grant of CNPq and FAPEMIG.

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