2A2-T11 A powered glove to support daily activities of cervical cord injury patients(Welfare Robotics and Mechatronics (3))

Abstract

An active orthosis, called powered glove, is under development to provide pinching function to cervical cord injury patients. The ortotic part of this powered glove system is a leather glove that has drive strings which work like human tendons to flex/extend fingers. The tension of drive strings is controlled by a controller based on user's command. The command signal is obtained by a belt shaped interface fixed on user's head. This interface detects activity of temporal muscle which works to close a jaw. Therefore the user can operate the powered glove through gentle chewing. A prototyped glove system is applied to two cervical cord injury patients and tested how well the powered glove can improve upper limb ability of cervical cord injury patients by providing pinching function. It is observed that the prototyped glove system extends upper limb ability of both patients through the evaluation test.