Development of a 3D-Printed Prosthetic Hand for Preschool Intervention

抄録

The adoption of prosthetic hands by preschool children with upper limb loss have many benefits. However, current child hand prostheses are often too expensive, burdensome and difficult to wear and use, which can lead them to be rejected. In this study, we attempt to address these issues with a novel hand prosthesis design for very young children with upper limb loss. Our hand prosthesis is affordable, lightweight, scalable and easy to use and wear. Moreover, it possesses two important features: a child-friendly auditory biofeedback and a socket with soft in-liner electrodes. We hypothesize that these design features will allow the child to control easily and intuitively the hand prosthesis. Thus, the control performance will be improved. Preliminary results demonstrated that our developed hand prosthesis can be successfully controlled by a child with upper limb loss.