Abstract
The development of robotics has gradually advanced from industrial and military use to medical nursing and rehabilitation use. Physical rehabilitation robotics has become the main stream in the medical application, including upper and lower limb rehabilitation robotic devices. Investigated researches in the global have shown that the intensity, repeatability, and the amount of rehabilitation in the process are directly related to the results of the rehabilitation process. Also, the preferable time for rehabilitation process for each patient is crucial the rehabilitation results. The patents will have beneficial recovery results if patents are able to undergo proper rehabilitation process on the preferable time set by the doctors. The method of rehabilitation process is decided by the clinical experience of the doctors and therapists; thus, different rehabilitation methods chosen by the doctors and therapist might lower the result of the rehabilitation process and raise the unnecessary medical cost. The purpose of this study is to design and develop a wearable robotic device for human hand, which focuses on patents who lost their range of motion limitation in their hand movement and suffered from nervous system diseases. The aim of this rehabilitation device is to assist patents in performing repeating hand movement rehabilitation. Also, doctors and therapist can control the setting rehabilitation device to fulfill the needs of the patents. Not only did this study focus on the design and development of a wearable robotic device for human hand but also develop the stiffness measurement system for robotic device. The measured data can be used to determine the level of healthiness of patents' hand in order for the doctors and therapist to decide the appropriate rehabilitation therapy for each individual. Through the development of the rehabilitation device and stiffness measurement system, doctors and therapists can be provided with real time result data to assist them in rehabilitation diagnosis and treatment.