Thumb Exoskeleton

Background

One of the many difficulties that stroke patients tend to have is the inability to use their arms and hands properly. Recovering the movement can either range from being extremely difficult to a permanent loss of movement. In addition, we have to know the differences between what a prosthetic is and what an exoskeleton is when speaking about a patient needing assistance using a secondary attachment on their body.
A prosthetic is a complete artificial body part (limb, implants, etc.) that is used in replacement of a missing or non-functioning body part. An exoskeleton would be an artificial external casing or structure covering a specific poorly functioning body part in order to provide support to a patient’s body part, allowing it to work properly.
There have been excellent inventions made for successfully assisting patients on using their hands and fingers; both prosthesis and exoskeletons of any sort. However, they are usually costly and are not for independent use since they need either a secondary person for assistance, such as a physical therapist or a machine the patient is connected to. That brings us to the two most important goals of this projects of making a project that is both efficient in our design criteria and making it as cheap as possible.

Goal and Objectives

• Design an exoskeleton aimed at assisting a simple up-down movement of the patient’s thumb that is both effective and comfortable.
• Execute a method for a portable project that can be controlled by the patient without any secondary human or machine assistance with either a self-harness or other application.
• Test out the product with stroke patients and analyze the results of its use.
• Improve the overall design of the project after various modifications and tests.
• Innovate the project with usage of thermal and electromagnetic approaches, instead of mechanical.

Innovation

When we were first planning out the idea for this project, mechanical features were the main approach for building it, giving set degrees of freedom for the thumb to move up and down to grasp an object. A simple example would be a patient using this thumb exoskeleton to pick up a pencil just using their thumb clamping towards the base of the primary index finger (not the tip of the index finger).
From here, we brainstormed other methods that a patient can be assisted with the “open-close” movement of the thumb exoskeleton; such as using springs, Nitinol wire and/or magnetism. The way that we will test these other methods are by trial and error; keeping in mind the amount of material, the type of material and cost of the material so we can have a steady building process.
We were able to test out the materials and made a prototype for the first method (Mechanical) and were able to observe what were the advantages and disadvantages of the materials. In addition we were able to predict potential factors when building/improving the designs.

The Bigger Picture

Every year, more than 795,000 Americans have a stroke and 8 out of the 10 survivors will suffer from Hemiparesis, or one-sided weakness in the body. This weakness throughout the body leads to difficulty in walking, coordination, balance and force in muscle movements. Knowing the amount of people who would be helped just in the US opens the doors for the rest of the world to benefit from this project. Since the project is aimed at designing a portable and economic product, there is a bigger opportunity for many patients to be able to afford and use the product on a day-to-day basis.

Timeline

Budget

Contact

Week 3 Thumb Exoskeleton

February 10, 2016

Week 2 Thumb Exoskeleton

February 10, 2016

David Reinkensmeyer
Professor, Advisor
dreinken@uci.edu
http://www.eng.uci.edu/users/david-reinkensmeyer

Click to join the discussion

Donate to this Project