hand rehabilitation device

I developed this hand rehabilitation device with a team of 3 other students as a project in the Medical Robotics course at Boston University. Intended to assist patients recovering from hand injuries restore normal movements, this device consists of a soft wrist and finger sleeve, a forearm-mounted actuator unit, and an upper-arm electronics unit. The system is cable-driven via servo motors to create movement for 3 fingers, and pitch and yaw motion on the wrist.

A simple control method was implemented to control the servo motors with a potentiometer. As the potentiometer is rotated, the servos actuate either the fingers or the wrist motion. A toggle switch allows the user to switch modes, dictating which motors are active. While developed as a rehabilitative device, it could also be used as an assistive device. To demonstrate the usefulness, a NASA Task Load Index (TLX) was performed by someone with limited hand mobility. Picking up a water bottle, the weighted score was quite low, indicating a low workload for the assistive device. Further work could include improved mounting of the cables on the soft sleeve, a force characterization of the cable driven system and installing force sensors for safety considerations, as well as inclusion of a battery to make this a truly mobile device. Additionally the electronics could be miniaturized on a PCB and combined into a single arm unit with the actuators.