A pneumatic muscle hand therapy device

Abstract

Intensive repetitive therapy improves function and quality of life for stroke patients. Intense therapies to overcome upper extremity impairment are beneficial, however, they are expensive because, in part, they rely on individualized interaction between the patient and rehabilitation specialist. The development of a pneumatic muscle driven hand therapy device, the Mentortrade mark, reinforces the need for volitional activation of joint movement while concurrently offering knowledge of results about range of motion, muscle activity or resistance to movement. The device is well tolerated and has received favorable comments from stroke survivors, their caregivers, and therapists.

Encouraging specific intervention motions via a robotic system for rehabilitation of hand function: A healthy pilot study

“…The hardware of the system consists of a Hand Mentor (version 2005) [9], Asus mobile tablet, and additional circuitry [8]. As seen in Fig 1, these hardware components have been combined with a tablet gaming application to create an integrated rehabilitation gaming system.…”

Design Method for a Reconfigurable Mechanism for Finger Rehabilitation

“…Of the exoskeleton designs, many have multiple degrees-of-freedom, and are therefore very dynamically complicated [8]- [13]. Some do not allow for the full range of finger motion [14]- [16], while others do not allow the motion to be sufficiently directed [15], [16]. Some use a cable drive system that induces significant friction, or have drive systems that are very stiff, and are therefore not adequately backdrivable [10]- [13].…”

Variable structure pantograph mechanism with spring suspension system for comprehensive upper-limb haptic movement training

“…Numerous haptic devices have been developed for motor and neurological rehabilitation of upper limbs, and their effectiveness has been validated and presented in the last decade [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. While improved effectiveness over conventional treatment has not been convincingly shown, in general, the leading advantages of robotic rehabilitation over traditional therapy are-1.…”

“…A survey of literature published to date reveals that the kinematic structure of robots for upper-limb motor rehabilitation is commonly either (1) serial linkage mechanisms in which the end effector of the robot contacts the user's hand, suitable for either arm-reach movement [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] or wrist-movement [12][13][14][15][16] training, or (2) exoskeleton-based mechanisms that provide haptic interaction for both the arm and wrist simultaneously [17][18][19][20]. Serial mechanism devices typically have between 1 and 3 degrees of freedom (DOFs), with the exception of those that have additional DOFs for wrist movement [21][22], while exoskeleton mechanisms typically have 7 DOFs.…”