DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A WEARABLE AND PORTABLE HAND EXOSKELETON FOR STROKE REHABILITATION

Abstract

Stroke is a leading cause of mortality and disability around the world. Particularly, hand motor impairment after stroke greatly lowers the independence and quality of life of patients. Hand exoskeleton as a treatment tool can provide repetitive, intensive, and task-oriented rehabilitation training for stroke patients. In this thesis, a wearable and portable hand exoskeleton for stroke rehabilitation is designed and evaluated. The hand exoskeleton allows independent control of five fingers’ flexion/extension and thumb’s opposition, providing continuous passive movement and task-oriented rehabilitation exercise. A slider-crank mechanism is used for flexion/extension of PIP/MCP joints of four fingers and MCP/CMC joints of the thumb to ensure joint alignment and a natural hand motion. The thumb’s CMC joint has one more rotational joint for its abduction/adduction. In order to provide bi-directional assistive force, we propose a novel mechanism, with cable in one direction and torsion springs in the opposite direction. During rehabilitation training, the hand exoskeleton with position control can assist patients in opening and closing their hands. To test the functionality, we have done some experiments in measuring the output torque and range of motion and evaluating the joint alignment performance. Experiment results have shown that the hand exoskeleton has ensured the natural finger motion and provide sufficient range of motion and assistive force for rehabilitation training. In terms of potential application, such a wearable and portable hand exoskeleton can be used in rehabilitation training in healthcare institutions and at home.