An innovative wearable device to evaluate motor symptoms during Deep Brain Stimulation surgery

The technological advancement observed over the past few years and the increasingly interest of the overall population in this field explains the arising of wearable devices, which provide an extensive list of advantages for their users in different areas. In the healthcare field, wearable systems are being used for personal health monitoring, sports performance improvement or as support diagnostic tool. In particular, the BRAIN group from INESCTEC developed a wearable system, named iHandU, which provides a real time quantitative evaluation of rigidity changes during Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgeries. The iHandU system is intended for patients with movement neurological disorders. The system is based on an algorithm that quantifies the improvement of rigidity during DBS surgeries, helping doctors to define stimulation sites and parameters. The main input of the referred algorithm is the gyroscope data of the patient’s hand during the movement of symptoms evaluation. This data is achieved through a wearable device placed on the patient’s hand, which, beside other components, includes an inertial sensor. The main goal of this master thesis was to enhance the iHandU system hardware. So, force sensors were added to measure the force doctors make in patient’s hand during the symptoms evaluation, since this variable can influence the quantification results. Furthermore, older components were replaced by low power and smaller size ones, by what the system firmware was also remade. In addition, a web application for data visualization and reproducibility tests of the inertial data provided by the produced devices was tested. In addition, a follow-up of the development of a band textile, where the hardware will be placed during surgery, was also conducted during this master thesis. In the end, these goals were successfully achieved and a new improved version of the iHandU system hardware was obtained. Moreover, it is believed that this new system is better prepared to be introduced in the wearable health devices market