Title:
Assessment and modulation of essential tremor using peripheral-nerve stimulation

dc.contributor.advisor DeWeerth, Stephen P.
dc.contributor.author Kim, Jeonghee
dc.contributor.committeeMember Wichmann, Thomas
dc.contributor.committeeMember Butera, Robert J.
dc.contributor.committeeMember Grover, Martha A.
dc.contributor.committeeMember McKay, J. Lucas
dc.contributor.department Electrical and Computer Engineering
dc.date.accessioned 2019-05-29T13:56:55Z
dc.date.available 2019-05-29T13:56:55Z
dc.date.created 2018-05
dc.date.issued 2018-01-11
dc.date.submitted May 2018
dc.date.updated 2019-05-29T13:56:55Z
dc.description.abstract Tremor is an abnormal oscillatory movement, observed in patients with essential tremor (ET), Parkinson’s Disease, and other neurological disorders. ET obstructs patient’s movements that require high degrees of dexterity and precision, resulting in a reduction of the quality of life for the patient. Current quantification methods of ET, which typically rely on subjective ratings by trained clinicians or researchers, are potentially susceptible to inter- and intra-rater variability. Most treatments for reducing tremors, such as medications and thalamic deep brain stimulation, have not been adopted broadly because of the invasiveness of the treatments and their lack of efficacy. To address these limitations, the objectives of this PhD dissertation are (1) to quantitatively assess tremor movement, and (2) to modulate/attenuate tremor movement by adjusting the parameters of electrical stimulation on peripheral nerves using a custom-designed real-time system. I have developed (1) an automatic and quantitative method consisting of three computer-based tasks along with their performance metrics that assess the characteristics of tremor, and (2) a wireless tremor modulation system via peripheral-nerve electrical stimulation using a wearable wrist device. I analyzed that the performance metrics of the proposed computer-based assessment tasks were highly correlated with tremor frequency and power. I found that peripheral-nerve stimulation significantly reduced the tremor frequency and tremor power, and the subject with stronger tremor exhibited a greater reduction in tremor power. I examined the effects of the stimulation parameters (stimulation amplitude, frequency, duty cycle, phase, and stimulation sites), and found that the proper range of stimulation amplitudes varied according to current tremor status. In a future study, I plan to develop a closed-loop optimization algorithm based on tremor characteristics of each patient to maximize the effect of stimulation in tremor modulation.
dc.description.degree Ph.D.
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/61105
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject Essential tremor
dc.subject Fitts’ law
dc.subject Human motor performance
dc.subject Kinetic tremor
dc.subject Peripheral nerve electrical stimulation
dc.subject Quantitative tremor assessment
dc.subject Tremor modulation
dc.subject Wearable tremor measurement
dc.title Assessment and modulation of essential tremor using peripheral-nerve stimulation
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor DeWeerth, Stephen P.
local.contributor.corporatename School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename College of Engineering
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication 6b8c24a1-7328-4161-8715-b26e0231ae78
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 5b7adef2-447c-4270-b9fc-846bd76f80f2
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
thesis.degree.level Doctoral
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