Development and Operation of an Experimental System to Measure the Moments Generated in the Finger Joints

Abstract

Little information is available on the forces that fingers can generate, and few devices exist to measure the forces they can create. The objective of this paper is to propose an experimental device to measure the moments generated by finger joints. The idea is to focus on a single joint and not on the effort generated by the whole finger. A system leaving only one joint free is developed to measure the maximum attainable moment in different joint positions between the extended and flexed finger. The device is tested on the proximal interphalangeal joints of the index fingers of thirty people for both hands. The results show a dispersion of results from one person to another but with similar trends in the evolution of the maximum achievable moment depending on the angle. Average values of the maximum moments attained by men and women for both hands are given for all angular positions of the joint. The results are analysed using principal component analysis. This analysis shows that four main modes represent more than 99% of the signal and allow the reconstruction of all the data for all the subjects. The four modes obtained can be used as a basis for the development of finger devices by hospital practitioners.