Under the financing of National Natural Science Foundation, study of mechanical hand able to restore hand and finger movement, a project contracted to both the Harbin Institute of Technology and No. 4 Hospital affiliated to the Harbin Medical University, has come up with an intelligent mechanical hand able to help patients to restore their hand functions. Based on EMB and CMP theories and kinematic and dynamic analysis, scientists developed the intelligent mechanical hand, simulating the movement of human hand and fingers.
Programmed in modules, the intelligent mechanical hand is made up of three human-finger-like fingers. Each finger operates under a finger controlling module, and a muscle controlling module. The finger module helps injured finger joints to move, using plane and spatial shank mechanisms. The muscle module drives the finger, using a driver, and a line of mechanisms for navigation, stress, and supporting functions. In training, the patient, who wears the intelligent mechanical hand glove, moves his or her fingers in a consecutive but passive manner, under the command issued by a recuperation expert. The assisted training can accelerate the healing and regeneration of the injured joint cartilage and surrounding muscles and ligaments, and gradually restore the functionality of injured fingers.
The mechanical hand collects stress data in the training, which can be used to assess clinical recuperation results on a quantitative basis. The data collected can also serve as the basic data for future clinical recuperation studies.
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