Effectiveness of rehabilitation glove for stroke patients in lowering muscle tone

Many stroke patients suffer from increased muscle tone in the upper extremity not long after the event, affecting their everyday functions, and a lot of time must be spent on rehabilitation at clinical facilities to relieve this symptom. To improve this clinical problem, this project conducted a pilot study to develop a rehabilitation glove to be used at home as well as to evaluate its effectiveness and subjective feedback of its users. In the development phase, we summarized several key design principles for the rehabilitation glove based on normal grasping movements of the hand and patients' suggestions. In the evaluation phase, we recruited four stroke patients with left- hand hemiplegia to wear the rehabilitation glove we developed to perform several tasks according to simple test for evaluating hand function (STEF). The subjective questionnaire was used to evaluate the feedback of the rehabilitation glove. The results of STEF showed no significant difference between healthy and affected hand with the use of the rehabilitation glove, indicating that the affected hand could attain functional level similar to that of the normal hand while wearing the rehabilitation glove. The subjective feedback showed that for visual feedback and fine motion, fingertip design is a key factor to influence the subjects' willingness to wear the rehabilitation glove. Findings of this study could contribute to improving the effectiveness of rehabilitation gloves and expanding design principles of assisted devices for patients with stroke.