iTex Gloves: Design and In-Home Evaluation of an E-Textile Glove System for Tele-Assessment of Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurological progressive movement disorder, affecting more than 10 million people globally. PD demands a longitudinal assessment of symptoms to monitor the disease progression and manage the treatments. Existing assessment methods require patients with PD (PwPD) to visi...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2023-03-01
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| Series: | Sensors |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/6/2877 |
| _version_ | 1797609132239355904 |
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| author | Vignesh Ravichandran Shehjar Sadhu Daniel Convey Sebastien Guerrier Shubham Chomal Anne-Marie Dupre Umer Akbar Dhaval Solanki Kunal Mankodiya |
| author_facet | Vignesh Ravichandran Shehjar Sadhu Daniel Convey Sebastien Guerrier Shubham Chomal Anne-Marie Dupre Umer Akbar Dhaval Solanki Kunal Mankodiya |
| author_sort | Vignesh Ravichandran |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurological progressive movement disorder, affecting more than 10 million people globally. PD demands a longitudinal assessment of symptoms to monitor the disease progression and manage the treatments. Existing assessment methods require patients with PD (PwPD) to visit a clinic every 3–6 months to perform movement assessments conducted by trained clinicians. However, periodic visits pose barriers as PwPDs have limited mobility, and healthcare cost increases. Hence, there is a strong demand for using telemedicine technologies for assessing PwPDs in remote settings. In this work, we present an in-home telemedicine kit, named iTex (<b>i</b>ntelligent <b>Tex</b>tile), which is a patient-centered design to carry out accessible tele-assessments of movement symptoms in people with PD. iTex is composed of a pair of smart textile gloves connected to a customized embedded tablet. iTex gloves are integrated with flex sensors on the fingers and inertial measurement unit (IMU) and have an onboard microcontroller unit with IoT (Internet of Things) capabilities including data storage and wireless communication. The gloves acquire the sensor data wirelessly to monitor various hand movements such as finger tapping, hand opening and closing, and other movement tasks. The gloves are connected to a customized tablet computer acting as an IoT device, configured to host a wireless access point, and host an MQTT broker and a time-series database server. The tablet also employs a patient-centered interface to guide PwPDs through the movement exam protocol. The system was deployed in four PwPDs who used iTex at home independently for a week. They performed the test independently before and after medication intake. Later, we performed data analysis of the in-home study and created a feature set. The study findings reported that the iTex gloves were capable to collect movement-related data and distinguish between pre-medication and post-medication cases in a majority of the participants. The IoT infrastructure demonstrated robust performance in home settings and offered minimum barriers for the assessment exams and the data communication with a remote server. In the post-study survey, all four participants expressed that the system was easy to use and poses a minimum barrier to performing the test independently. The present findings indicate that the iTex glove system has the potential for periodic and objective assessment of PD motor symptoms in remote settings. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T05:56:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5af8df6947e747648a89962dda1f9261 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T05:56:11Z |
| publishDate | 2023-03-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj.art-5af8df6947e747648a89962dda1f92612023-11-17T13:42:46ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202023-03-01236287710.3390/s23062877iTex Gloves: Design and In-Home Evaluation of an E-Textile Glove System for Tele-Assessment of Parkinson’s DiseaseVignesh Ravichandran0Shehjar Sadhu1Daniel Convey2Sebastien Guerrier3Shubham Chomal4Anne-Marie Dupre5Umer Akbar6Dhaval Solanki7Kunal Mankodiya8Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USADepartment of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USADepartment of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USADepartment of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USADepartment of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USADepartment of Physical Therapy, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USADepartment of Neurology, Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI 02903, USADepartment of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USADepartment of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USAParkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurological progressive movement disorder, affecting more than 10 million people globally. PD demands a longitudinal assessment of symptoms to monitor the disease progression and manage the treatments. Existing assessment methods require patients with PD (PwPD) to visit a clinic every 3–6 months to perform movement assessments conducted by trained clinicians. However, periodic visits pose barriers as PwPDs have limited mobility, and healthcare cost increases. Hence, there is a strong demand for using telemedicine technologies for assessing PwPDs in remote settings. In this work, we present an in-home telemedicine kit, named iTex (<b>i</b>ntelligent <b>Tex</b>tile), which is a patient-centered design to carry out accessible tele-assessments of movement symptoms in people with PD. iTex is composed of a pair of smart textile gloves connected to a customized embedded tablet. iTex gloves are integrated with flex sensors on the fingers and inertial measurement unit (IMU) and have an onboard microcontroller unit with IoT (Internet of Things) capabilities including data storage and wireless communication. The gloves acquire the sensor data wirelessly to monitor various hand movements such as finger tapping, hand opening and closing, and other movement tasks. The gloves are connected to a customized tablet computer acting as an IoT device, configured to host a wireless access point, and host an MQTT broker and a time-series database server. The tablet also employs a patient-centered interface to guide PwPDs through the movement exam protocol. The system was deployed in four PwPDs who used iTex at home independently for a week. They performed the test independently before and after medication intake. Later, we performed data analysis of the in-home study and created a feature set. The study findings reported that the iTex gloves were capable to collect movement-related data and distinguish between pre-medication and post-medication cases in a majority of the participants. The IoT infrastructure demonstrated robust performance in home settings and offered minimum barriers for the assessment exams and the data communication with a remote server. In the post-study survey, all four participants expressed that the system was easy to use and poses a minimum barrier to performing the test independently. The present findings indicate that the iTex glove system has the potential for periodic and objective assessment of PD motor symptoms in remote settings.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/6/2877Internet of Thingstelemedicinee-textileswearable sensorssmart glovesParkinson’s disease |
| spellingShingle | Vignesh Ravichandran Shehjar Sadhu Daniel Convey Sebastien Guerrier Shubham Chomal Anne-Marie Dupre Umer Akbar Dhaval Solanki Kunal Mankodiya iTex Gloves: Design and In-Home Evaluation of an E-Textile Glove System for Tele-Assessment of Parkinson’s Disease Sensors Internet of Things telemedicine e-textiles wearable sensors smart gloves Parkinson’s disease |
| title | iTex Gloves: Design and In-Home Evaluation of an E-Textile Glove System for Tele-Assessment of Parkinson’s Disease |
| title_full | iTex Gloves: Design and In-Home Evaluation of an E-Textile Glove System for Tele-Assessment of Parkinson’s Disease |
| title_fullStr | iTex Gloves: Design and In-Home Evaluation of an E-Textile Glove System for Tele-Assessment of Parkinson’s Disease |
| title_full_unstemmed | iTex Gloves: Design and In-Home Evaluation of an E-Textile Glove System for Tele-Assessment of Parkinson’s Disease |
| title_short | iTex Gloves: Design and In-Home Evaluation of an E-Textile Glove System for Tele-Assessment of Parkinson’s Disease |
| title_sort | itex gloves design and in home evaluation of an e textile glove system for tele assessment of parkinson s disease |
| topic | Internet of Things telemedicine e-textiles wearable sensors smart gloves Parkinson’s disease |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/6/2877 |
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