A feasibility study on a low-cost solution of essential tremor suppression mechanism / Nurul Afiqah Mohd Fauzi

Tremor is a condition where the patient's body part moves involuntarily in an uncontrollable rhythmic motion. Most people do have tremor but it is unnoticed as the detected tremor occurs to a small degree. However, when the tremor becomes perceptible it is then classified as an essential tremor. Patients suffering from severe essential tremors have problems in conducting daily activities as their movements were disrupted by the involuntary tremble. Essential tremor has become more prevalent nowadays to people in any group of age, however it is most commonly found among people aged older than 65 years old. Due to the cases becoming more common, a lot of research was conducted to suppress the tremor in order to significantly reduce the displeasing condition. The current approach of treating tremor is either by medication and brain surgery or wearable devices. The brain surgery and medication may lead to the risk of complication and side effects, whereas the wearable devices have less risk and many recent researches have shown positive results. Despite having positive results, wearable devices tend to come in a weighty and bulky design. In this study, a validation on a less known method of using mechanical vibration as tremor suppression was conducted. A feasibility study on a low-cost solution of essential tremor suppression mechanism was conducted in this research. With limitation on conducting tests to an actual patient, an imitation of tremor condition was recreated using a simulation device consisting of a DC motor attached to a deconstructed small propeller. As for the suppression mechanism, a few vibration motors were selected as the actuator of the system and the suppression on the tremor was tested by placing the vibration motor in several arrangements. The vibration analysis of three axis linear acceleration and three axis angular acceleration of simulated tremor and suppressed tremor were tested and evaluated. The final results show high similarities in tremor simulation as per compared to existing study and the suppression system manages to produce a reduction on the simulated tremor.