Development of rehabilitation device for hemiplegic fingers by finger-expansion facilitation exercise with stretch reflex

This paper develops a motor function recovery exercise device to perform intensive repetition of facilitation exercise for motor functional recovery of the hemiplegic fingers. On the facilitation exercise, active finger expansion can be realized and facilitated by stretch reflex. When the figer is being flexed passively, a stimulation tapping is applied instantaneously on the finger for making strech reflex and active finger expansion. Then, resistance forces are applied on the expanding finger for maintaining the strech reflex. In this paper, novel parallel mechanisms, force sensing system with high sensitivity and resistance accompanying cooperation control method are proposed for sensing, controlling and realizing the passive finger flexion, stimulation tapping, stretch reflex, active finger expansion, resistance forces and repetition facilitation exercise. The effectivities and performances of the device are shown by some experiments.