Concept of a wrist Hand Orthosis based on a prestressed compliant structure

In the treatment of hand injuries in the context of orthopedic care, movable wrist hand orthoses are used in numerous instances. Early motion therapy is in most cases advantageous for adequate, rapid and successful long-term healing of the hand. Conventional dynamic wrist hand orthoses can only be used for movement therapy to a limited extent since they represent the wrist as a simple rotating joint and neglect the complexity of the hand movement possibilities. In this paper, a preliminary concept for dynamic wrist hand orthoses based on prestressed compliant structures is presented. The distinctive feature of this concept lies in the enabling of multiaxial motion capabilities of the human hand without applying conventional joints. According to the concept the wrist region is surrounded by a prestressed compliant structure. Besides the derivation and description of the concept, a first three-dimensional computer-aided design is shown. Additionally, the necessary steps in the development of such a novel dynamic wrist orthosis are discussed.