Usability Assessment of a Cable-Driven Exoskeletal Robot for Hand Rehabilitation

• Published in: Frontiers in neurorobotics Vol. 13; p. 3
• Main Authors: Tsai, Yu-Lin, Huang, Jian-Jia, Pu, Shu-Wei, Chen, Hsiang-Peng, Hsu, Shao-Chih, Chang, Jen-Yuan, Pei, Yu-Cheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Research Foundation 13.02.2019; Frontiers Media S.A
• Subjects: Activities of daily living; Cables; Clinical trials; Exoskeleton; Hand; International conferences; Neuroscience; Rehabilitation; rehabilitation device; Robotics; Robots; Spasticity; Stroke; upper distal limb rehabilitation; Usability; Taiwan; exoskeleton; rehabilitation device; upper distal limb rehabilitation; usability; stroke
• ISSN: 1662-5218; 1662-5218
• DOI: 10.3389/fnbot.2019.00003

Case series. Robot-assisted rehabilitation mediated by exoskeletal devices is a popular topic of research. The biggest difficulty in the development of rehabilitation robots is the consideration of the clinical needs. This study investigated the usability of a novel cable-driven exoskeletal robot specifically designed for hand rehabilitation. The study consists of three steps, including prototype development, spasticity observation, and usability evaluation. First, we developed the prototype robot to manipulate the patient's fingers based on the clinical needs and the cable-driven concept established in our previous work. Second, we applied to patients with different levels of spasticity. Finally, we obtained the system usability scale (SUS) and assessed its usability. Two healthy subjects were recruited in the pre-test, and 18 patients with stroke and four healthy subjects were recruited in the formal test for usability. The total SUS score obtained from the patients and healthy subjects was 94.77 ± 2.98 ( = 22), indicating an excellent level of usability. The satisfaction score was 4.74 ± 0.29 ( = 22), revealing high satisfaction with . The tension profile measured by the cables showed the instantaneous force used to manipulate fingers among different muscle tone groups. meets the clinical needs with excellent usability, satisfaction, and reliable tension force monitoring, yielding a feasible platform for robot-assisted hand rehabilitation.