Quantifying the force exerted by a therapist for the calibration of rehabilitation devices

Abstract

Robotic-assisted rehabilitation devices show promising results regarding increasing the recovery rate for stroke patients experiencing hemiparesis. A significant amount of research and development has been focused on robotic-assisted rehabilitation devices in recent years. These rehabilitation devices are intended to help patients regain func-tionality of their limbs after an event such as a stroke. This dissertation is focused on the development of a device aimed at hand rehabilitation. A hand rehabilitation device in the form of an exoskeleton was designed, and a proto-type was constructed. The rehabilitation device is capable of moving each finger of a patient’s hand, including the thumb. The device is capable of measuring the forces ap-plied to the patient as well as the amount of force applied by the device for each finger. The force measuring capability of the device can be used to measure external forces acting on the wearer’s hand; this was used to measure the amount of force therapists apply to a patient in different positions.The results showed that it is possible to quantify the forces applied by a therapist dur-ing rehabilitation exercises; however, due to the large fluctuations in the forces applied by different therapists, a therapist making use of robotic rehabilitation devices needs to be characterised and the device configured accordingly.