CleveMed's Division of Movement Disorders is focused on quantifying movement disorder symptoms and providing home based therapy aimed at restoring function. We are currently developing a line of clinical and research products that focus on movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, stroke and cerebral palsy. These diseases produce symptoms that may limit voluntary motor control or cause unwanted involuntary movements. These symptoms have a large negative impact on the people’s ability to conduct activities of daily living, and hence decrease their quality of life. CleveMed's Division of Movement Disorders is working to develop clinically deployable systems that record movement, restore control and enhance function. Funding provided by the National Institutes of Health has allowed CleveMed to establish several programs to develop clinical products focused on both improving the diagnosis and therapy of movement disorders, as well as providing assistive devices for those suffering from these disorders.
Kinesia is a compact wireless clinical system intended to quantify motor symptoms of movement disorders such as Parkinson′s disease and essential tremor. The patient worn device wirelessly telemeters motion and electrical muscle activity to a computer for display and analysis. Kinesia’s untethered engineering design allows great flexibility for in clinic measurements or continuous symptom monitoring at a patient′s home.
KinetiSense is a small, lightweight system that was developed using the same technology as Kinesia, but intended for the research market with a broader range of applications. Accelerometers and gyroscopes monitor three dimensional motion while integrated amplifiers allow for two channels of EMG. The system’s compact size and wireless capability make it appropriate for a variety of applications such as gait monitoring, rehabilitation and biomechanics. The system can be used in real time with a PC or data can be stored to on-board memory, making it ideal for numerous motion monitoring scenarios.
Technology Under Development
The Division of Movement Disorders is also developing assistive devices. Individuals with Parkinson's disease or essential tremor have symptoms that can greatly affect control of a standard handheld computer mouse. To help these people, CleveMed is developing an adaptive wireless computer mouse that will detect a specific movement disorder symptom such as dyskinesia, bradykinesia, hypokinesia or rigidity and then compensate for it in order to move the mouse as intended. For children with cerebral palsy, CleveMed is developing a user worn system to assist with activities of daily living that are compromised due to their movement disorder. The goal of the system is to automatically detect when a child is attempting to complete a specific activity, and then assist with the functional task through electrical stimulation to weak or paralyzed muscles.
Also under development is Crescendo™, a multimodal rehabilitation system. The system currently integrates 3 dual-axis goniometers to measure joint angles, 4 channels of electrical stimulation, 8 channels of electromyography and 2 grasp force channels in a small, compact unit. The goal of Crescendo is to record motion, electrical muscle activity (EMG) and grasp force to detect therapy tasks that the patient is attempting, such as video guided activity or video games. The system will be designed to detect when assistance is needed and provide electrical stimulation to weak or paralyzed muscles in order to aide completion of the therapy task.
For CleveMed's Movement Disorders Division, our motivation isn't just improving diagnosis and therapy for those afflicted with movement disorders. We're also working at restoring control and enhancing function in order to make lives better.
