title: A quantitative evaluation of alcohol withdrawal tremors.
abstract: This paper evaluates the relation between Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome tremors in the left and right hands of patients. By analyzing 122 recordings from 61 patients in emergency departments, we found a weak relationship between the left and right hand tremor frequencies (correlation coefficient of 0.63). We found a much stronger relationship between the expert physician tremor ratings (on CIWA-Ar 0-7 scale) of the two hands, with a correlation coefficient of 0.923. Next, using a smartphone to collect the tremor data and using a previously developed model for obtaining estimated tremor ratings, we also found a strong correlation (correlation coefficient of 0.852) between the estimates of each hand. Finally, we evaluated different methods of combining the data from the two hands for obtaining a single tremor rating estimate, and found that simply averaging the tremor ratings of the two hands results in the lowest tremor estimate error (an RMSE of 0.977). Looking at the frequency dependence of this error, we found that higher frequency tremors had a much lower estimation error (an RMSE of 1.102 for tremors with frequencies in the 3-6Hz range as compared to 0.625 for tremors with frequencies in the 7-10Hz range).
authors.forename: Parham
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Aarabi
authors.forename: Narges
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Norouzi
authors.forename: Taylor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dear
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Carver
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bromberg
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gray
authors.forename: Mel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kahan
authors.forename: Bjug
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Borgundvaag
mesh_terms: D061725:Accelerometry; D020268:Alcohol-Induced Disorders, Nervous System / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D006225:Hand / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D009043:Motor Activity; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D000068997:Smartphone; D013375:Substance Withdrawal Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D014202:Tremor / Q000175:diagnosis*