Evaluation on an Assistive Device in Suppressing Hand Tremor during Writing

Abstract

This paper presents an evaluation of experimental results of a prototype assistive device in suppressing hand tremor during sitting and standing conditions. The handheld instrument is capable of sensing and suppressing hand tremor or other unpredicted  movement during writing. The assistive device incorporates an accelerometer, allowing the movement of the hand to be captured and computed. The tremor suppressing instrument design is carried out by placing two springs between a handheld casing and pen-point at one end of the device. Decomposition of acceleration was analyzed using power spectral analysis to compare the data captured by attaching an accelerometer to a regular pen. The findings show that the proposed assistive device is able to improve the legibility of the handwriting of all the tested subjects by more than 16%.