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Kimanzi, Stephen M.

University of British Columbia

Tremors represent one of the most prevalent types of movement disorders, often leading to significant functional impairments. With the expanding landscape of research and development in addressing neurodegenerative movement disorders like Parkinson’s Disease, there is a growing focus on devising effective solutions. While existing medical interventions, including surgical procedures like Deep Brain Stimulation and medications such as Levodopa, have shown varying degrees of success, there is increasing interest in exploring alternative approaches. One such approach involves mitigating tremors by suppressing their manifestation in specific areas of the body, particularly the palm. The aim of this research is to conceptualize, design, and assess a tremor suppression device capable of attenuating tremors across multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs). This is achieved by framing tremors as vibrations and employing vibration absorber design techniques to develop a passive, non-linear multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) attenuator. Through dynamic modeling of the human arm complex at the musculoskeletal level, coupled with iterative refinement of the device through rigorous experimental evaluation, the final prototype demonstrates significant efficacy in reducing tremors across multiple DOFs. Specifically targeting the most troublesome tremor DOFs of pronation-supination and flexion-extension, the device achieves reductions exceeding 70%. Patient outcomes corroborate the findings of the experimental evaluation, with a notable two-thirds retention rate observed among nearly 1000 units deployed. These results underscore the promising potential of the developed device in mitigating the debilitating impacts of neurological movement disorders. Furthermore, they lay the groundwork for the advancement of assistive devices aimed at improving the quality of life for individuals affected by such conditions.

Text

2024-12-23

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89989

Mechanical Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/