Tremor Remote Monitoring
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development and Validation of an objective and contactless tool for measuring tremor
IRAS ID
317680
Contact name
David C Wong
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 31 days
Research summary
Many neurological conditions cause rhythmic involuntary hand movement, known as tremor. Tremor rhythm and size depends on the exact neurological condition and how long a patient has had the condition. To diagnose the cause of a tremor, doctors currently look at a patient’s hands and make a visual assessment. It is difficult to make precise judgements of tremor by eye, even for experts. This means that diagnosis and treatment decisions can be inaccurate or delayed.
We are addressing this problem by developing a contactless tool that can measure tremor in patients' hands using video. In this project, we will develop a method to measure tremor size from videos of hands. We will use this information to develop a smartphone app that allows clinicians to measure size and speed of tremor.
To do this, we will record short (less than one minute) videos of people with hand tremor. Any adult with capacity for informed consent and an existing diagnosis of any condition with comment symptom of tremor (e.g. Parkinson’s, essential tremor) will be eligible to take part.We will only record the hands. To assess our method, we will compare the video-estimated tremor size to measurements taken using a ruler and an accelerometer (movement sensor stuck to back of hand using medical tape). Videos will be recorded at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals neurology clinic, immediately before or after a participant’s normal clinic appointment.
We will recruit participants for four months, aiming to obtain at least 62 videos. We hope to show that our method can measure tremor to within 1 cm.
This project is being funded by the National Institute for Health Research, Invention for Innovation scheme.REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Sheffield Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/YH/0251
Date of REC Opinion
11 Nov 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion