In my opinion being able to measure PD symptoms can help in managing your Parkinson's.

Ideally there would be a reasonably priced (<£20, say) piece of kit available that would do the job accurately. I don't know of anything. Given this, it's down to finding DIY solutions.

My present need is to measure a particularly bad left hand tremor. It's more of a flap, eminating from my wrist and causing my whole arm to shake. My fingers are moving about 2 cm with a frequency of approximately 5.5 hz.

I want to be able to measure the effect of a potential therapy. My tremor comes and goes pseudo-randomly. So, to get a reasonable comparison of before and after treatment values, I need each measurement to last many minutes and to be non-intrusive, letting me get on with life while the measurement is being taken.

My previous attempt fails to do this because you need to keep your finger on a laptop's pressure pad while the measurement is being made. See:
http://www.parkinsonsmeasurement.org/toolBox/tremor.htm

A possible way forward is to use the latest generation of pedometers. These use accelerometer technology to count steps or, in our case, shakes. They cost about £10. They can come in credit card-like sizes, which can be attached to the hand. (Alternatively, ipods, and similar products have accelerometers and apps which use these.)

The pedometer I have is almost up to the job, but:
- it has a high threshold: responds to my bad left-hand tremor, but not to the smaller right-hand tremor;
- it seems to max out at about 3 hz, so the count of the number of shakes is reduced, but consistent, one run with another;
- it doesn't give the amplitude of the tremor (but I can estimate that separately).

If you have a pedometer, I'd be grateful if you'd try it on your tremor and let us know the results.

John