Preliminary Assessment of a Hand and Arm Exoskeleton for Enabling Bimanual Tasks for Individuals With Hemiparesis

The design and preliminary assessment of a semi-powered hand and arm exoskeleton is described. The exoskeleton is designed to enable bimanual activities of daily living for individuals with chronic, upper-limb hemiparesis resulting from stroke. Specifically, the device augments the user's grasp strength and ability to extend the affected hand for bimanual tasks and supplements wrist and elbow stability while conducting these tasks. The exoskeleton is battery-powered and self-contained with all electronics and power units placed within the device structure. A preliminary assessment of the exoskeleton was performed with three subjects having right-sided upper-limb motor deficit resulting from stroke. For subjects with limited hand and arm functionality, the exoskeleton increased grasp strength and improved the ability to perform representative bimanual tasks.