Robo-Glove Offers Stroke Survivors a Hand For Recovery

Strokes affect millions across the globe, leaving survivors with a multitude of health issues, including diminished physical capabilities as a result of the neurotrauma. Fortunately, researchers from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) have developed a robotic glove that can aid in rehabilitation.

As strokes affect a person’s motor skills, rehabilitation includes treatment by regaining and relearning skills often used in everyday life in order to return the patient to living a normal life as much as possible.

The team from Boca Raton, Florida have come up with a smart exoskeleton device that fits over a person’s hand and can be used in music therapy to assist a patient in learning to play a musical instrument, or, in this case, the piano.

The “smart hand” uses machine-learning, in addition to pneumatic actuators in each fingertip, to teach a person how to play the piano by “feeling” when they are playing the correct or incorrect movements of a song. The idea is that wearing a pair of these devices will enable each hand to independently relearn co-ordination and dexterity during the rehabilitation process.

Dr Erik Engeberg, senior author on the study and a FAU professor, explained: “The glove is designed to assist and enhance their natural hand movements, allowing them to control the flexion and extension of their fingers.”

Results from the study suggest that the technology can be adapted to other tasks besides music, but there are several hurdles such as improving the machine-learning algorithms still to overcome.