Using a smart phone as a standalone platform for detection and monitoring of pathological tremors

Introduction: smart phones are becoming ubiquitous and their computing capabilities are ever increasing. consequently,more attention is geared towards their potential use in research and medical settings. for instance,their built-in hardware can provide quantitative data for different movements. therefore,the goal of the current study was to evaluate the capabilities of a standalone smart phone platform to characterize tremor. results: algorithms for tremor recording and online analysis can be implemented within a smart phone. the smart phone provides reliable time- and frequency-domain tremor characteristics. the smart phone can also provide medically-relevant tremor assessments. discussion: smart phones have the potential to provide researchers and clinicians with quantitative short- and long-term tremor assessments that are currently not easily available. methods: a smart phone application for tremor quantification and online analysis was developed. then,smart phone results were compared to those obtained simultaneously with a laboratory accelerometer. finally,results from the smart phone were compared to clinical tremor assessments. © 2012 daneault,carignan,codère,sadikot and duval.