Development of a Finger Force Measurement System for Hand Grasp Motion Evaluation

Abstract

It is known that the ability of the object handling contains a lot of information, and the balance of grasp force of each finger is important to show the dexterity of finger's movement. These findings are expected to be positioned as a method of gathering useful information for healthcare monitoring and confirmation of rehabilitation progress like orthopedic diseases, or early detection research of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and cerebral infarction diseases. In this study, we have developed a device and a measurement system that can evaluate the force balance of multiple fingers during a daily hand grasp motion on an object like a beverage bottle. This measurement system can make a quantitative evaluation on a hand motion with indicating the changes of the hand natural grasp posture and force balance which could be caused by any illness indicative changes of hand function. By using the developed measurement system, it was found that by the condition of changing the grasp posture from natural to unnatural, the collapse of the best finger force balance could be measured and verified relating to the grasp posture.