Preliminary Clinical Evaluation of the X-Limb Hand: A 3D Printed Soft Robotic Hand Prosthesis

This paper presents the initial clinical assessment of the X-Limb hand, a 3D printed myoelectric hand prosthesis with fully soft/compliant structure. The design also takes into account the practical requirements including light-weight, multi-grasping capability, ease of manufacture and intrinsic actuation. The X-Limb hand is tested with one person with unilateral congenital below-the-elbow deficiency who never used any type of hand prosthesis. He performed two prosthetic functionality benchmark measures: Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test (JHFT) and Box and Block (BB) test. The results of the X-Limb hand are compared with the DEKA arm (the most advanced upper-limb prosthesis) and SoftHand Pro (a clinically assessed flexible myoelectric hand) using the z-score method as there was only one subject in our study. The results showed comparative performance of the subject using the X-Limb hand to the performance of the DEKA Arm and SoftHand Pro in other two studies. The promising performance of the first time prosthetic hand user demonstrates the capability of the X-Limb hand in performing wide range of tasks and shows its potential to significantly reduce the difficulty in learning to operate a myoelectric hand prosthesis.