This paper presents the design process of an exoskeleton for executing human fingers' extension movement for the rehabilitation procedures and as an active orthosis purposes, together with its first clinical usability tests of a robotic exoskeleton. Furthermore, the Fingers Extending eXoskeleton (FEX) is a serial, under-actuated mechanism capable of executing fingers' extension. FEX is based on the state-of-art FingerSpine serial system. Straightening force is transmitted from a DC motor to the exoskeleton structures with use of pulled tendons. Ten healthy and six pathological subjects in chronic phase (3 traumatic brain injury and 3 chronic stroke subjects) were enrolled in the study. No dropouts were recorded during the usability test training and all subjects fulfilled the protocol. The patients did feel safe and comfortable with the device while wearing although the movement's velocity of the fingers equipped with FEX was found to be slow for all the healthy patients. All subjects showed excellent compliance and satisfaction, highlighted by the results of the NRS rating and the absence of dropouts associated to intolerance to the rehabilitative training. After the training, VAS scale was assessed with mean of pain intensity 3.00, SD=2. The proposed solution is easily adaptable to any finger length or position of the joints.
Authors
- dr med. Patrizio Sale,
- rd med. Stefano Masiero,
- Giovanni Stellin,
- dr Francesco Becchi,
- dr inż. Wiktor Sieklicki link open in new tab
Additional information
- Category
- Publikacja w czasopiśmie
- Type
- publikacja w in. zagranicznym czasopiśmie naukowym (tylko język obcy)
- Language
- angielski
- Publication year
- 2018
