Development of a soft-type glove capable of customizing finger rehabilitation exercises considering differences in physique.

Abstract

When designing a hand rehabilitation device, it is important to account for the differences in physique among patients and tailor the rehabilitation exercises to each patient's needs. This paper presents the prototype of a soft cable-driven glove capable of easily adjusting the glove to fit the individual physique of the patient and customizing finger rehabilitation exercises. Considering the length of the phalanges and the thickness of the finger, the position of fixed parts on the index finger can be easily adjusted. In order to enable various index finger rehabilitation appropriate for the patient, four cable-based cable routing for the index finger was adopted. The kinematic model of the glove was experimentally verified and utilized to plan the rehabilitation exercises. Based on this kinematic model, four representative finger rehabilitation exercises were operated with the developed glove on four different sizes of artificial fingers. The adaptability and adjustability of the glove to four artificial fingers were proved by demonstrating the possibility of assisting with various rehabilitation exercises while driving the three joints of the index finger independently.