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.