Research progress and development trend of flexible hand rehabilitation gloves

Abstract

The flexible hand rehabilitation glove is proposed to solve the problems of long rehabilitation training time for patients and high workload for doctors, and to make the treatment more effective. With the advances in robotics, robotic-assisted therapy has developed rapidly and has become an essential complement to conventional treatment. To understand flexible hand rehabilitation glove devices, with the different construction types of actuators and drive methods as the mainline, the corresponding study of these structures as the auxiliary lines. The characteristics and the current state of research have been discussed. A brief introduction to manufacturing actuators and rehabilitation systems is also given. Through the analysis of hand rehabilitation gloves, some current advantages and disadvantages are summarized, and future directions and functional diversification are envisaged. Certain feasible research suggestions have been proposed for future development regarding structure, functional diversity, and a combination of driving methods. These include that there will be more combinations of pneumatic and motor driven, combining the advantages of both methods to overcome the disadvantages of each. The structural design will be more in line with anatomy and ergonomics, make it more esthetically pleasing. More innovative controls methods will be adopted to achieve more complex rehabilitation functions.