Over the past year, UBC Okanagan’s engineering students have fielded requests from more than 50 clients across Canada, each seeking practical, innovative, and cost-effective solutions for their unique challenges. These commissions are taken on by senior engineering students as a part of their culminating assignment, the engineering capstone project.
This week, we are featuring a team being supervised by Dr. Dylan Goode and Dr. Hadi Mohammadi in the Heart Valve Performance Laboratory (HVPL) at UBCO.
They’re tackling a unique two-part challenge: improving a 3D-printed robotic arm that simulates the tremors experienced by Parkinson’s patients, and using it to design and test a next-generation attenuator – sort of like a ‘bracelet’ – aimed at reducing tremors and enhancing quality of life.
What is Parkinson’s Disease?
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive nervous system disorder that impacts movement, affecting nearly 10 million people worldwide.
This disease originates from the brain, where cells in a region called the substantia nigra, produce less dopamine – a chemical not just responsible for keeping us happy, but also for coordinating movement. Without enough dopamine, the signals traveling in the brain’s neural pathways get slower, impacting the brain’s ability to control movement effectively.
As a result, everyday actions like picking up a coffee or turning one’s head become challenging, leading to symptoms like tremors, muscle stiffness, and a restricted range of motions.
As science advances to develop a deeper understanding of PD to find a cure, treatments focus on managing the symptoms. Common approaches include taking dopamine boosting medications, and surgical options like deep brain stimulation (DBS), which involves planting electrodes in targeted brain areas to regulate abnormal neural signals.
A New Approach: The Parkinson’s Tremor Attenuator
Innovative projects like this engineering team’s capstone aim to address PD symptoms through non-invasive solutions.
The attenuator’s purpose is straightforward, but powerful: reduce the intensity of hand tremors so that patients can perform everyday tasks more easily. Such a device would restore an element of a patient's autonomy and independence, making massive strides to improve their quality of life. However, creating a device to counteract tremors is not as simple as it may seem.
Challenge 1: Simulating PD Tremors
To design a bracelet that effectively mitigates tremors, the team first needs a way to simulate PD tremors to test it on.
The solution? A custom 3D-printed robotic arm. This arm mimics the characteristic tremors by replicating vibrations and 2D movement of the shoulder joint and elbow joint of an arm.
Several generations of master’s students and capstone teams have produced this robotic arm as it looks today. This generation of capstone team is charged with improving this robotic arm by replacing the shoulder joint with a sort of ‘ball’ that can better mimic the ball joint that our arms have.
By making this replacement, they can increase the arm’s degrees of freedom – or direction of movement – in order to represent the complexities of Parkinson’s tremors more accurately.
Challenge 2: Designing the Attenuator
Previous generations of students have worked on developing the attenuator to look like what it is today, which is essentially a bulky looking bracelet with magnets in it. This year’s capstone group will be looking to improve the device by making it smaller and improving its function. By minimizing it, they hope to make it more comfortable and functionally effective for long-term use.
The science behind the attenuator is grounded in the physics principles taught in the engineering program, specifically in vibrational damping, the process of dissipating energy. When applied to PD tremors, damping can help absorb the energy generated by involuntary movements and minimize their effects.
Instead of using a traditional spring-loaded system to absorb movement, magnets are used instead. By strategically arranging magnets and small masses around the wrist, the device can leverage the natural properties of magnetic forces to create a resisting force against tremors. This interaction helps slow tremors down and stabilize the hand, allowing for more controlled and steady actions.
In the future, these attenuators could be designed to gather data on each patient’s unique tremor patterns, allowing for more personalized and effective stabilization of their movements.
The Future of Parkinson’s Relief
If successful, this attenuator device could benefit millions worldwide, offering a practical, affordable tool for managing tremors.
Projects like these exemplify the power of engineering to address real human challenges, especially regarding a disease that an estimated 120 students at UBCO may face later in life.
These students may still be in training, but they stand at the forefront of innovative healthcare solutions, delivering hope to improve the quality of life of those living with Parkinson’s disease.
To keep up with the latest news from the Heart Valve Performance laboratory and their multitude of biomedical engineering projects, take a look at their lab website!
.png){kind=small}
