Glove recovers fine motor skills

Constantinos Mavroidis, professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering; Maureen Holden, associate professor of Physical Therapy and doctoral student Mark Sivak advised the team on the development of the device, which is formally known as the Angle Tracking and Location at Home System (ATLAS) bimanual-rehabilitation glove.

The project sought to offer real-world solutions to a rehabilitation challenge and did so by combining the knowledge of physical therapists and engineers, said Holden.

‘In this project we were trying to develop a low-cost virtual-environment-based glove system that can be used for motor retraining of the arm, hand, fingers and thumb in patients who have suffered a stroke,’ Holden said. ‘The idea was to keep the cost low enough and the features simple enough that patients can afford to buy one and use it independently in their homes.’

Sivak noted that stroke patients often couldn’t continue with physical therapy, either because they can’t drive to the location or it’s too expensive. ‘With the glove, the idea is to create an affordable, at-home mechanism to help them regain fine motor skills.’