In-Vivo Hand Mass Determination and an Anthropometric Investigation on Segment Length and Radius for Prosthetic Segment Design.

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate the validity of the use of a cylindrical approximation for human fingers and a parallelepiped approximation of the palm, from a modelling perspective, for the determination of the mass of the hand. The goal is to provide an intuitive way of determining the length and radius of missing segments from partial hand amputees based on palm dimensions and determine the corresponding mass based on the previous two approximations. In-vivo hand mass measurements were taken from 23 able-bodied participants using Archimedes' water displacement method to verify the geometric approximations used. Furthermore, an anthropometric investigation on how segment length and radius change with respect to palm dimensions was undertaken and the estimates found, which can then be used in supporting the design of prosthetic segments in a personalised context.