A portable system for quantitative assessment of parkinsonian bradykinesia during deep-brain stimulation surgery

Deep-brain stimulation is the most effective surgical treatment for severe Parkinson´s disease (PD). Bradykinesia is one of the primary symptoms of PD. 10 s hand grasping movement is used to assess bradykinesia severity in this study. An inertial measurement unit (IMU), which is attached to the middle finger, is used to measure the angular displacement of the middle finger movement during bradykinesia assessment task. The dominant grasping frequency, mean value and standard deviation (SD) of hand grasping ranges are used as the severity features of bradykinesia. Three healthy subjects and four PD patients were tested by the wearable system. The modified mean range correlated well with the 5-point clinical ratings. Further clinical experiments will be performed in the near future.