Design of a Portable Electric-Stimulation System to Reduce the Essential Tremor on the Hand

Abstract

The essential tremor syndrome is a nerve disorder affecting around 77 million people worldwide. The causes are still not completely clear and there is no cure. Essential tremor is characterized by an uncontrollable “shaking” that affects greatly the quality of life of patients. The main treatments nowadays are drugs or surgery which have collateral effects, are expensive and does not fit to all the patients. Electrostimulation has emerged as an alternative treatment, however, the main drawback of this technique is the fatigue caused on the stimulated muscles as well as the difficult to make natural movements due to the stimulation. In this work is proposed a portable transcutaneous electrostimulation device based on a new type of stimulation that reduces the muscle fatigue by stimulating afferents pathways instead the muscle. The proposed device generates a bipolar current signal, 100 Hz pulse width of 30 μs and current from 0 to 20 mA. In this work is presented the methodology of design, preliminary results of the proposed circuit and the mechanical design of the portable device. The main contribution of this work is the design of a portable stimulator aiming to expand the research related to this technique.