Approximately 800,000 people in the US have strokes each year, with 30-66% experiencing impaired hand function. A soft robotic rehabilitation glove has been developed to provide hand therapy through continuous passive motion and patient assisted movement. A study compared the range of motion of a human finger to a corresponding robotic digit, finding their ranges of motion to be in good agreement. Future work will modify the robotic glove design based on additional experimental data to optimize control parameters and accommodate human finger anatomical characteristics for clinical evaluation and hand therapy.

1. Conclusions/Future Work
v Approximately 800,000 people in the United States
have a stroke each year, of which 30% to 66% of all
stroke survivors have impaired hand functions.
v Hand impairments are mostly recognized by spasticity,
inability to open/close hands, inaccurate finger and
hand movements, and poorly modulated fingertip
forces.
v Continuous Passive Motion (CPM), and Patient
Assisted Movement (PAM) are two common
therapeutic interventions which capitalize on the
brain’s inherent neuroplasticity to increase adaptation
to stroke.
v However, a shortage of resources and compliance will
hinder the return of hand functionality. While it has
been shown that robotic motion can provide many of
these attributes, no dedicated system has been made
which can effectively apply post-stroke hand therapy.
v To address this need, a soft robotic rehabilitation
system (Fig. 1) capable of monitoring and assisting
hand motion for post-stroke patients has recently been
developed.
v To apply this system to the clinical population, it is vital
to understand the kinematic interaction between such
a robotic glove and the human hand to ensure patient
safety and performance.
v This abstract compares simulation and experimental
data on a human finger with a corresponding robotic
digit to evaluate the viability of the current design for
rehabilitation purposes.
Figure 4(a) shows the robotic digit’s angular data for the
DIP, PIP and MCP joints while Fig 4(b) shows this data for
a human finger.
The achieved ROM for MCP, PIP, and DIP joints of the
robotic digit are 85˚, 96˚, and 53˚, respectively, which are in
good agreement with the full anatomical ROM.
Figure 1: (a) Prototype of the robotic glove, (b) CAD model of a single
robotic digit.
Introduction
Method/Results
DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A REHAB GLOVE DEVICE FOR
POST-STROKE HAND REHABILITATION
Chris Ha1, Rita Patterson2, Timothy Nicaris3, Mahdi Haghshenas-Jaryani4, Muthu BJ. Wijesundara4, Carolyn Young5, Nicoleta Bugnariu5
1Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, 2Department of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, 3Department of Orthopedic Surgery and
5Department of Physical Therapy, UNTHSC; 4University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute
Glove and Soft Robotic Digits:
This system consists of five sensorized robotic digits and a
wearable fixture along with a programmable control unit
that monitors and modulates the trajectory of the fingers
(Fig. 1a). CPM can be applied through this system by
setting the motion parameters of the control unit.
Finger motion is accomplished by pneumatically actuated
soft robotic digits which uses inflatable and deflatable
bellows to produce a bending movement along the joints
(Fig. 1b).
The robotic digit consists of three bellow-shaped soft
sections and four rigid sections (in an alternative order) in
correspondence to three joints, three phalanges with the
metacarpal.
Computer simulations of the soft robotic digit have been
examined for finger range of motion (ROM) at each joint:
metacarpophalangeal (MCP), proximal interphalangeal
(PIP), and distal interphalangeal (DIP) (Fig. 2).
The results show that the resulting relative angles between
rigid sections at MCP, PIP, and DIP (Fig. 2a) can reach full
anatomical ROM (MCP: 0-90º; PIP: 0-100º, DIP: 0-70º at a
single actuation pressure of 24.3kPa, as shown in Fig. 2(b).
Figure 2: (a) Relative angles between MCP, PIP, and DIP sections, (b)
ROM for each joint with respect to actuation pressure.
Kinematic study:
A kinematic study was carried out to compare one subject’s
index finger with a robotic digit using a motion capture
system (Motion Analysis Corp, Santa Rosa, CA).
Figure 3: Marker placement on (a) a subject’s finger index and (b) a
single soft robotic digit.
(a)
(b)
Figure 4: Robotic and Human finger joint angles.
This study determined the functional anatomical ROM
requirements at each joint for both the robotic digit and
index finger. To identify the motion parameters, reflective
markers were placed on the joints and phalanges (Fig. 3a
and b). Both the subject and robotic digit moved the finger
for flexion/extension while the x, y, and z coordinates of the
markers were recorded.
A hand therapy glove has been designed to provide flexion
and extension of the fingers as an adjunct to hand therapy.
A prototype has been fabricated based on initial design
parameters and is able to provide joint ROM based on the
literature.
Functional grasp parameters have been experimentally
measured in a human finger and will be used for future
design improvements.
In the future, experimental data will be collected with the
robot on the hand to provide optimal control parameters for
passive motion of the digits.
Other important kinematic parameters include the center of
rotation (COR) and dorsal skin lengthening of the human
finger. This lengthening effects the joint location of the
corresponding robotic digit, causing misalignment. To
accommodate for this, the robotic digits will be designed to
match this lengthening. Once improved design parameters
are obtained, these data will be used to modify the robotic
glove for clinical evaluation.