Assessment and retraining of hand strength in stroke and spinal cord injured patients

Abstract EN

A device is described which can be used in a Windows environment to measure the force developed in each finger and at the wrist and be used for biofeedback training in therapy of stroke and spinal cord injured patients.

It can also be used to help regain strength and control of movement.

The device consists of a platform of adjustable height so that the arm and hand can be laid on the device level with the shoulder.

The hand and wrist are then placed in a series of straps connected to stainless steel bars with 4 strain gages mounted on them.

Movement of the fingers would then bend the bars and deform the gages which are arranged as a Wheatstone bridge.

The resulting electrical output was applied to a linear amplifier and digitized on an IBM computer.

Using a program written in visual basic V 5.0, the output was then displayed for the patient to see and recorded either on disk or on paper with a full graphics printout.

The device has been tested and used to analyze the loss of strength in neuromuscular disabilities and for biofeedback training to retrain neural control of the hand.