On the Use of Non-Contact Capacitive Sensors for the Assessment of Postural Hand Tremor of Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinsonian tremor manifests in different types: rest, postural, and action tremors. The postural tremor occurs while a body part is held straight out from the body in a stable position against gravity. The Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), which is a subjective assessment performed by the qualitative judgment of neurologists, is the clinical standard for parkinsonian tremor assessment. Despite the common use of subjective methods, inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors are largely used in many studies as a motion capture system to objective assessment of tremors. However, this kind of sensor must be attached to the patient’s body, it limits the patient’s movements and requires specific techniques for correct positioning in the limb. In this sense, non-contact capacitive (NCC) sensors are an alternative proposed in this research to record the motor activity of the hand and wrist during a pose against gravity. In order to assess the postural tremor and evaluate this novel sensing technology, data from ten subjects, five with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and five neurologically healthy (H) matched in age and sex, were collected. We analyzed the instantaneous mean frequency (IMNF) of the signals from NCC and gyroscope sensors for both groups. The selected descriptive statistical variables allowed discrimination (p < 0.05) among subjects from H and PD groups while using the gyroscope or the NCC sensor. The obtained results indicate that the NCC sensor can measure the postural hand tremor, and also that frequency features extracted from the collected signals can be used to discriminate subjects from both groups.