Recovr Glove: Accessible Hand Exoskeleton for Stroke Rehabilitation and Everyday Aid

Each year, over 7 million stroke survivors experience upper limb dysfunction, often losing the ability to perform essential hand movements like finger extension and contraction for grasping. Exoskeletons offer a promising solution for rehabilitating gross hand function, providing controlled, repetitive movements and personalized exercises. However, existing models struggle with affordability, usability, and integration into daily life. This paper presents Recovr Glove, a cost-effective, user-friendly exoskeleton glove aimed at improving gross hand function recovery. Recovr features passive extension and active contraction mechanisms, adaptable to varying levels of spasticity. By capturing surface electromyography (sEMG) signals from the flexor digitorum profundus muscle, responsible for grasping, it enables cognitive control of hand movements. We evaluated the Recovr Glove across four parameters: grip strength, extension strength, contraction angle, and object grasping. In motor response testing, Recovr achieved 95% accuracy, with reliable rotation and an average delay of 0.49 seconds $\pm 0.41$. During contraction tests, the grasp strength was an average of $55.21 \pm$ 5.68 N. Extension testing, using a spring scale on each finger, showed an adjustable average force range of 0.1 to 5.5 N for the pinky and from 0.7 to 7.7 N for the thumb, depending on rubber band tension.