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Old 02-23-2012, 04:34 PM
johnt johnt is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Stafford, UK
Posts: 1,059
15 yr Member
johnt johnt is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Stafford, UK
Posts: 1,059
15 yr Member
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I've improved the tremor report generated by the program:

http://www.parkinsonsmeasurement.org/toolBox/tremor.htm

Note the new url.

To use the program you put your finger on a laptop's touchpad. If the touchpad is not sensitive enough to detect the tremor or, conversely, the tremor is so large that the cursor is continually being taken off the screen or, indeed, the part of the body with the tremor cannot be moved on the touchpad, for instance a foot, an alternative way can be used.

The Audacity program can be downloaded for free. The people who have written Audacity have done an excellent job.

Amongst other things, it allows you to make sound tracks and visualize them with precise timing. To find the frequency of a tremor all you need to do is to let the tremor repeatedly tap a table, for instance. The noise this generates is picked up by the computer's microphone and "drawn" on the screen. The taps are usually clearly visible over the background noise. All that needs doing then is to count the taps over a short period. Normalizing this to one second will give the frequency in hertz. Audacity is also able to run a spectral analysis which is useful if there are superimposed tremors.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to see how Audacity can be used to measure the magnitude of tremors.

I'll be interested in hearing your experience of these measurement tools.

My view is that once you can measure something, you are on the way to being able to control it.

John
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Born 1955. Diagnosed PD 2005.
Meds 2010-Nov 2016: Stalevo(75 mg) x 4, ropinirole xl 16 mg, rasagiline 1 mg
Current meds: Stalevo(75 mg) x 5, ropinirole xl 8 mg, rasagiline 1 mg
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