Development of multifunctional continuous passive movement device for finger joints using pneumatic soft actuators

Abstract

This paper presents a multifunctional continuous passive movement (CPM) device for finger joints using pneumatic soft actuators. We have developed the CPM device for finger joints which provides not only the range of motion (ROM) exercises such as flexion and extension movements but also to execute a massage therapy for the muscles of the hand and fingers. Basically, the finger rehabilitation is carried out for the thumb through to the little finger. However, the thumb has a higher degree of freedom compared with the other fingers and often undergoes rehabilitation independently. Therefore, we designed the present CPM device so that muscle stretching, flexion/extension and abduction/adduction of the index to little fingers (excluding the thumb) are performed simultaneously. We measured the max ROM needed for finger joints. As the results, we confirmed that the device is able to provide several ROMe xercises.