Design of a Soft Robotic Glove for Hand Rehabilitation of Stroke Patients With Clenched Fist Deformity Using Inflatable Plastic Actuators

In this paper, we present a soft robotic glove designed to augment hand rehabilitation for stroke patients with clenched fist deformity. The robotic glove provides active finger extension for hand rehabilitative training, through its embedded inflatable actuators that are fabricated by heat bonding of flexible plastic sheets. Upon pressurization, the actuators inflate, stiffen, and extend the fingers. The actuators were embedded in the finger pockets of a glove. In this work, the device was evaluated in terms of its extension torque generated on the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint of a dummy finger model and a healthy subject. A stroke patient with finger spasticity was recruited to demonstrate the feasibility of the device to assist in finger extension. Preliminary results showed that the device was able to generate significant extension torques to provide assistance in finger extension for both healthy and stroke participants.