Abstract
In medical rehabilitation and physical therapy practice it has been proved that the passive mobilization of the hand joints as part of rehabilitation exercises improves the recovery period and also diminishes the rehabilitation costs by about 50%. In order to facilitate the practice of passive mobilization exercises in both medical units and patient homes the development of new adequate rehabilitation equipment has become a necessity. It is within the context of this requirement that the paper puts forward and discusses a novel solution of rehabilitation equipment that makes possible the simultaneous exercising of the radiocarpal, metacarpophalangeal and interphalangeal joints. The first novelty proposed by this equipment is using the Fin-Ray effect® in the construction of the hand support and mobilization structure. A further novelty is the utilization of a pneumatic muscle as the motor that drives the equipment. The paper presents the construction of the equipment and discusses range of motion generated by it compared to the corresponding motion limits of the human hand, as identified in literature.
Highlights
The human hand is a complex articular structure that includes bones, tendons, nerves, ligaments and tissue forming an assembly that allow the hand to conduct motions with a certain dexterity and force required for everyday tasks
In order to obtain a rotation angle of the hand support of 150° (-80°...+70°), the displacement of the free end of the muscle is of 39.25 mm. For this value of the displacement the force that can be developed by the pneumatic muscle is of 136.5 N, greater than the maximum force required for the actuation of the rehabilitation equipment
The paper presents the construction of a rehabilitation device of the hand joints, designed for the simultaneous recovery exercising of the radiocarpal, metacarpophalangeal and interphalangeal joints
Summary
The human hand is a complex articular structure that includes bones, tendons, nerves, ligaments and tissue forming an assembly that allow the hand to conduct motions with a certain dexterity and force required for everyday tasks. It is this very complexity of the hand that entails high risk of accidents which may affect the ability of performing even the simplest of tasks. The analysis further revealed that existing equipment is designed for the exercising of merely a single joint, and cannot be used for the simultaneous mobilisation of several areas of the hand [1] Starting from these observations the paper presents a novel concept of a device for the simultaneous rehabilitation of the radiocarpal, metacarpophalangeal and interphalangeal joints. The compliance of the entire assembly is ensured by the deployment of a pneumatic muscle as a motor, which due to air compressibility has an inherently compliant behaviour
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