Design and Development of Effective Transmission Mechanisms on a Tendon Driven Hand Orthosis for Stroke Patients

TL;DR

This study introduces two innovative tendon-driven hand orthosis designs that enhance force transmission and are effective in aiding finger extension in stroke patients with spasticity, validated through modeling, experiments, and clinical tests.

Contribution

It presents novel orthosis designs with improved transmission efficiency and demonstrates their clinical feasibility for stroke rehabilitation.

Findings

Proposed designs increase force transmission around finger joints.

Experimental results show effective digit extension in spasticity patients.

Clinical tests confirm the device's feasibility and effectiveness.

Abstract

Tendon-driven hand orthoses have advantages over exoskeletons with respect to wearability and safety because of their low-profile design and ability to fit a range of patients without requiring custom joint alignment. However, no existing study on a wearable tendon-driven hand orthosis for stroke patients presents evidence that such devices can overcome spasticity given repeated use and fatigue, or discusses transmission efficiency. In this study, we propose two designs that provide effective force transmission by increasing moment arms around finger joints. We evaluate the designs with geometric models and experiment using a 3D-printed artificial finger to find force and joint angle characteristics of the suggested structures. We also perform clinical tests with stroke patients to demonstrate the feasibility of the designs. The testing supports the hypothesis that the proposed designs efficiently elicit extension of the digits in patients with spasticity as compared to existing baselines.