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NCT05308368Completed

Analysis and Suppression of Tremor During Grasp Using Ultrasound Imaging and Electrical Stimulation

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Last updated 27 Oct 2025

Brief summary (registry, in English)

Individuals experiencing tremors face difficulty performing activities of daily living caused by involuntary oscillation of the muscles in the hands and arms. Current solutions to help suppress tremors include medication, surgery, assistive devices and lifestyle change. However, each of these has a drawback of its own including cost and unwanted side effects. Aside from the solutions listed, it has been shown that functional electrical stimulation (FES) is a possible solution to help suppress tremor. Additionally, FES can be combined with different technologies including accelerometers, gyroscopes and motion capture to develop a closed loop system for tremor suppression. However, this has drawbacks including signal interference and the need for multiple sensor to fully classify the tremor. Ultrasound imaging solves some of these issues because it can provide a direct visualization of hand muscles that contribute to tremor. This study will focus on detecting characterizing and differentiating tremors from voluntary hand motion using ultrasound imaging. The results obtained from this study will help design FES-based tremor-suppression techniques in the future. This study will target both subjects with different tremor disorders and able bodied subjects.

Status (registry)
Completed
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
12 (actual)
First submitted
16 Mar 2022
Start date
11 Apr 2021
Primary completion date
31 Jul 2025
Lead sponsor
North Carolina State University
NCT number
NCT05308368

What you commit to

  • Study type: Interventional
  • Participants enrolled: 12
  • From 11 Apr 2021 to the primary completion date, 31 Jul 2025
  • 1 site in 1 country
  • Visits and tests: ask the trial team, the registry does not list them

Built from the registry fields of ClinicalTrials.gov. It describes the study, not your situation.

Who cannot take part

Copied verbatim from ClinicalTrials.gov and grouped by topic. Only the trial team decides who can take part.

Prior treatment

  • Pre-existing, concomitant neuromuscular or cerebellar disorders
  • Use of medications that can alter the function of the neuromuscular junction.
  • Those with concomitant essential tremor as determined by history or confirmed by movement disorders specialist prior to assessments.

Other illness

  • Infection at the upper limb at time of assessment

Other

  • Muscle weakness as determined by Medical Research Council grade less than 5/5 on direct testing in the upper limb afflicted with rest tremor

Who the study is looking for

  • At least 40 years of age, and no more than 90 years of age.
  • Meet UK Parkinson's disease brain bank diagnostic criteria
  • Have clinical evidence of rest tremor of one or both upper extremities defined as involuntary, rhythmic oscillations about any joint within the upper extremities
  • Tremor amplitude must be at minimum 1 cm as determined by expert opinion by a movement disorders specialist.
  • Due to the nature of measurements occurring during a grasp maneuver, the tremor must be deemed to become re-emergent with a fixed posture. This shall be defined by development of postural tremor that does not begin immediately upon grasping the vertical object, but instead with a delay in development of oscillatory movement of at least half a second as timed by a stopwatch, and that may grow in amplitude over seconds to maximum amplitude without changing the force of the grasp at first. Note that within-individual intermittency and variability of tremor can be influenced by anxiety, stress, cold temperature, and fatigue. In an effort to reduce this variability, we will have subjects perform tasks in a comfortable area, providing up to 20 minutes to allow them to relax in a temperature-neutral location, and reduce anxiety
  • Subjects will fall under the able body category if they exhibit no movement disorders and can perform grasping motion with no inhibition.

Age in the registry: 18 years to 90 years · Sex: All · Accepts healthy volunteers

Full criteria on ClinicalTrials.gov

Sites (1)

Sites in registry order. Pick your city on the disease page to sort them by distance.

SiteCityCountrySite status
Engineering Building III
Coordinator of this site? Confirm its status
RaleighUnited StatesUnknown status

This page is information, not medical advice. Discuss any trial with your doctor.