Design of Hand Rehabilitation Device with Power-Assist Function

This paper proposes a wearable hand rehabilitation device, DULEX-II, with a power-assist function for upper-limb paralysis on stroke patients. DULEX-II has three degrees of freedom for the wrist, the index finger, and a mechanism enclosing other three other fingers except the thumb. The main function of the device is to increase the range of motion of the finger and wrist joint gradually. DULEX-II is designed based on parallel mechanism and composed of linear actuators and an air cylinder to perform flexion and extension motions of each joint. Experimental results show that DULEX-II is applicable to the hand rehabilitation for stroke patients.