Rapid Prototyping of a Hand Model for Rehabilitation

Abstract

Studies and researches in medical devices made evident the need of new systems and technologies for locomotors recovery of human body as to reduce the reintegration time in normal activities and, not the least, to improve the recovery quality, to give the possibility to perform natural movements identical to those before the suffered injury. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to obtain the 3D virtual model of a mechanism describing the hand kinematics, and a real medical prototype device to be used in locomotors recovery of the hand. In order to perform the movements, pneumatic fluidic actuators are used, considering that they are flexible, small, made especially for this project. A specialized software for assisted design is used to obtain the virtual model and for the fabrication of device component parts Rapid-Prototyping technology is applied, the Fused Deposition Modeling principle (FDM).