A Wearable Bionic Soft Exoskeleton Glove for Stroke Patients

Hand dyskinesia in stroke patients greatly restricts their daily life ability. This paper presents a wearable bionic soft exoskeleton glove (Bio-exoskeleton Glove), which can help the stroke patients achieve two basic movement patterns: precision grip and power grip, and the patients wearing it can perform many activities of daily living. Based on human anatomy and biomechanics: the flexor digitorum profundus achieving the movement pattern of power grip, the flexor digitalis superficialis achieving the movement pattern of precision grip and the extensor digitorum achieving movement of finger extension are replaced by the tension line, a set of artificial exoskeleton muscles outside the hand is reconstructed. As the tension line is consistent with the muscles of hand in the fixed position and the direction of tension on the finger, the Bio-exoskeleton Glove has a strong human-machine coupling. Therefore, it can assist the stroke patients( hands to achieve the natural movement. This paper gives a detailed introduction to the principle and the structure design, and the Bio-exoskeleton Glove was tested for performance. The motion trajectory correlation between natural motion and the device-assisted motion reached 0.97 through experimental verification. The Bio-exoskeleton Glove can help the stroke patients basically achieve the motion trajectory of the human hand. Finally, through the patient test, the stroke patients wearing the Bio-exoskeleton Glove can achieve two basic movement patterns: precision grip and power grip.