Automated Evaluation of Coordinated Movement of Fingers Using Home Rehabilitation Device

摘要

Home rehabilitation is much in need in ageing societies. Especially, for hemiplegia patients who have paralysis at fingers, it is known that long continuous rehabilitation is effective for recovery. To automate home rehabilitation without the help of a medical specialist, it is desirable not only to provide a rehabilitation procedure but also to give the condition of the paralysis of the patient. In our previous studies, we proposed a robotic device to foster separative voluntary finger lift movement. The device mounts pressure sensors at each finger to monitor the degree of unwanted finger movements. However, it is not clear which is an effective way to measure the condition of paralysis by these finger pressure time series data. In this paper, we propose a new measurement method that is based on the “coordinated movement” of fingers. A patient is asked to perform 4 tasks: pinch2 (pinch movement by index finger and thumb), pinch3 (pinch movement by index, middle and thumb), grasp2 (grasp movement by the ring and little finger), and grasp3 (grasp movement by the middle, ring, and little finger). All pressure time series of finger movements are quantified their dissimilarities with data of standard healthy subjects. We found that the grasp3 has the largest correspondence relation with the degree of paralysis.