title: Implementation of an iPhone for characterizing Parkinson's disease tremor through a wireless accelerometer application.
abstract: Parkinson's disease represents a chronic movement disorder, which is generally proportionally to age. The status of Parkinson's disease is traditionally classified through ordinal scale strategies, such as the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale. However, the application of the ordinal scale strategy inherently requires highly specialized and limited medical resources for interpretation. An alternative strategy involves the implementation of an iPhone application that enables the device to serve as a functional wireless accelerometer system. The Parkinson's disease tremor attributes may be recorded in either an effectively autonomous public or private setting, for which the resultant accelerometer signal of the tremor can be conveyed wireless and through email to a remote location for data post-processing. The initial testing and evaluation of the iPhone wireless accelerometer application for quantifying Parkinson's disease tremor successfully demonstrates the capacity to acquire tremor characteristics in an effectively autonomous environment, while potentially alleviating strain on limited and highly specialized medical resources.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Engineering IDP, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1600, USA. rlemoyne@ucla.edu
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lemoyne
authors.forename: Timothy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mastroianni
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cozza
authors.forename: Cristian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Coroian
authors.forename: Warren
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Grundfest
mesh_terms: D000054:Acceleration; D040421:Cell Phone; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012984:Software; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D013686:Telemetry / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D014159:Transducers; D014202:Tremor / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology