Home-Use Assistive System for the Rehabilitation of Range of Motion at Hand with Voluntary Movement Monitoring

- Prototype of Simple Pneumatic Actuator to Support Hand Massage -

Abstract

A hemiplegic patient suffering paralysis at hand may exhibit contracture due to abnormal muscle tone. To relieve contracture, a therapist perform a massage onto a hand and fingers which is known as a range of motion rehabilitation. A patient’s fingers and a hand will be driven by the force applied by the therapist. However, it is pointed out that the patient should also try to move fingers voluntarily during the massage. Many researches and devices have been proposed to automate the hand massage. However, there is not a device which encourages the patient’s voluntary movement during given a massage. In this res each, we propose an automated hand massage device which not only drives fingers but also monitors muscular activities. In this report, we describe a simple pneumatic hand massage device. As the muscular activity sensing, we plan to use MMG or pressure sensing, which will be shown in our future reports.