The Effect of Prolonged Use of a Wearable Soft-Robotic Glove Post Stroke - a Proof-of-Principle

Abstract

Many stroke survivors encounter difficulties in the performance of activities of daily life due to limitations in functional use of the hand. Robotic technology has the potential to compensate for this loss by providing the support that is required to perform activities of daily living, especially when these devices are wearable comfortably for many hours at home. As a first step towards the implementation of assistive technology in the homes of stroke survivors, usability along with the potential effect of prolonged use of a wearable soft-robotic glove during activities of daily life on functional task performance was assessed in this study. Therefore, five chronic stroke survivors were asked to use a wearable soft-robotic glove for four weeks at home during preferred activities of daily life. Before and after the home use of the glove, functional task performance was assessed in a lab environment. After the use of the glove, system usability was assessed. The prolonged use of the glove resulted in an improved supported and unsupported functional performance during tasks related to activities of daily life, as measured with the Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test. Promising system usability results were found indicating a good probability for acceptance of the glove. The results from this study indicate the potential of the current glove to be used as assistive tool, which even showed a therapeutic effect. Yet, the glove should be tested in a larger sample for better interpretation and confirmation of these promising results.

A fabric-based soft hand exoskeleton for assistance: the ExHand Exoskeleton

“…This could be related to the fact that the activities were performed with complete flexion and extension movements for every grasp, and the time required for the exoskeleton to perform the extension movement of 2.00 ± 0.35 s and the flexion movement of 3.47 ± 0.30 s, in addition to the deflation time which is about second. This can be seen in the times of the JTHFT subtasks, as the longer times are related to multi-object tasks, as opposed to the Writing subtask and Simulated Feeding subtask, as only one extension and one flexion movement were required to grasp a single object, a pen for the Writing subtask and a piece of cutlery for the Simulated Feeding subtask, which resulted in the shortest times of the ExHand Exoskeleton (times of 25.33 ± 3.18 and 26.26 ± 3.84 s, respectively) and similar to those presented by Van Ommeren et al ( 2018 ) and Tran et al ( 2020 ).…”

Gr!pp: Integrating Activities of Daily Living into Hand Rehabilitation

“…So far, these attempts focus on direct translation of clinical exercises to the home setting by assisting the exercises to be executed regardless of the location of the patient [17]. All efforts require patients to be proactive and self-motivated and allocate time and space to implement the exercises into their daily lives [24,29,30]. Unfortunately, this requirement is hardly realistic for patients, as they either find the practices time-consuming and nonfitting their daily routines or forget to do the exercises [36].…”

Detection of the Intention to Grasp During Reaching in Stroke Using Inertial Sensing

“…This could make the SEM Glove™ a suitable solution for stroke survivors that do not show spasticity or contractures but still experience problems with executing grasping movements. Up to now, a comparable, further developed, version of the SEM Glove™ is the only wearable soft-robotic glove that has shown to be feasible when used for four weeks independently during ADL at home by stroke patients [10].…”