Development and Evaluation of Tip Pinch Strength Measurement on a Paretic hand Rehabilitation Device

• Jung-Yeon Kim,
• Ye-Rin Cha,
• Sang-Heon Lee,
• Bong-Keun Jung,

Vol. 11, No. 2, February 27, 2017
10.3837/tiis.2017.02.033, Download Paper (Free):

• Robot-assisted rehabilitation
• Upper extremity rehabilitation
• Measurement of tip-pinch strength
• Reliability
• wearable device

Abstract

In this study, we described the development of a methodology to measure tip-pinch strength on the paretic hand rehabilitation device and aimed to investigate reliability of the device. FSR sensors were embedded on the device, and tip pinch strength was estimated with data collected from the sensors using a developed equation while participants were demonstrating tip pinch. Reliability tests included inter-rater, test-retest, and inter-instrument reliability. B&L Engineering pinch gauge was utilized for the comparison. Thirty-seven healthy students participated in the experiment. Both inter-rater and test-retest reliability were excellent as Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICCs) were greater than 0.9 (p<0.01). There were no statistically significant differences in tip-pinch strengths. Inter-instrument reliability analysis confirmed good correlation between the two instruments (r = 0.88, p < 0.01). The findings of this study suggest that the two instruments are not interchangeable. However, the tip-pinch mechanism used in the paretic hand rehabilitation device is reliable that can be used to evaluate tip pinch strength in clinical environment and can provides a parameter that monitors changes in the hand functions.

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