Preliminary Study on Using Accelerometers to Measure Involuntary Movements for the Assessment of Neurological Motor Impairments

Involuntary movement can be classified into tremor, chorea, athetosis/dystonia, ballismus, myoclonus, or tic. In clinical settings, diagnosing a cause of involuntary movement is generally performed by observation and interview. Proper diagnosis relies on the doctor´s experience and knowledge. Objective assessment tool to support doctors for discriminating involuntary movements are requested. An accelerometer is a portable and noninvasive device. We propose to use acceleration of body sites as an evidence of the discrimination. In this study, we analyse the characteristics of left upper limb´s movement at rest and postural task of participants with/without neurological motor impairment. The results suggest that waveform, the number of base-line crossing and the root mean square value of acceleration have the potential to assess the involuntary movement.