Plastic Optical Fiber Sensor for Handgrip Force Monitoring During Physical Rehabilitation

According to the World Health Organization, there are about 2.3 million new annual breast cancer (BC) cases. Knowing that after surgery BC survivors (BCSs) frequently report a decrease on their muscle activity and a reduction on their fine motor skills, it is fundamental that the rehabilitation process starts right after surgery, focusing on the upper limb function recovery. One of the faculties commonly affected during the treatment, is the handgrip capacity. Its rehabilitation process requires a close monitoring of the typically prescribed exercises, which is most often done based on qualitative observation, provided only during the physical therapy sessions. The capacity to quantitatively evaluate the rehabilitation process, both from home or in a clinic scenario, represents an added value to the rehabilitation process for the medical staff and for the BCS itself. Targeting the improvement of the BCS rehabilitation process, it is proposed a low-cost plastic optical fiber (POF) sensor for handgrip force monitoring during the performance of exercises designed for its rehabilitation. The tool designed presented a sensitivity of (-7 ± 1) m V/N, demonstrating a good performance during the execution of different handspring exercises and the capacity to evaluate the maximum effort from different subjects, for the same exercise.