Development of a hand rehabilitation system to prevent contracture for finger joints based on the therapy of occupational therapists (Massage a hand and range of motion exercises using pneumatic soft actuators)

Abstract

There has been increased interest in use of pneumatic actuators in many fields, such as medical care and welfare. In particular, proposed pneumatic soft actuator with soft material has many advantages such as low mass, flexibility, safety and user-friendliness. We therefore focus on the pneumatic soft actuators as a drive source of a rehabilitation device. The purpose of this work is to develop a rehabilitation system to prevent contracture of the finger joints using the pneumatic soft actuators. This paper describes the concept, design, prototype and evaluation of the rehabilitation system with the actuators. The system has two different actuators, stepping motors and pneumatic soft actuators. The stepping motors are used for moving the pneumatic actuator at right position for finger rehabilitation. The pneumatic soft actuators are also used for the range of motion (ROM) and relaxation exercise. We measured the flexion and extension angles of the fingers in the rehabilitation test. As the results, we confirmed that the rehabilitation system is able to provide ROM exercise. The test clarified the problems of rehabilitation system with unlimited to the joint range of motion at the same time.