Soft Synergy-Based Artificial Hand for Prosthetic Applications

描述（由申请人提供）：人手对于许多日常生活活动（ADL）的表现至关重要，包括自我喂食，工具使用和娱乐。因此，由于创伤性损伤或疾病导致的手的丧失显著限制了肢体丧失者进行ADL和工作的能力，从而极大地影响了整体生活质量。尽管手假肢的设计和研究取得了进展，但仍存在一些障碍，使假肢手无法被肢体丧失者广泛接受。假肢使用的两个最重要的阻碍因素是假肢的有限功能，例如，有限的能力perfor ADL，和舒适性，其中包括适合和假体的重量。与放弃手假体相关的其他因素是假手的耐用性;缺乏感觉反馈;成本，当考虑更复杂的手假体的初始和维护成本时，这可能是重要的，即，肌电模型;以及假手的美学外观。因此，目前市售的手假体不能满足肢体缺失者的需要，即，重新获得一定程度的自主权，功能，并重新进入劳动力市场。为了解决手部假肢研究的上述差距，并获得肢体丧失的人，我们建议设计一个新的假手的基础上设计的比萨大学和意大利理工学院（IIT），比萨/IIT SoftHand（SH）的假手。SH的设计基于最近提出的“软协同”方法，该方法利用了人手协同概念和新型软机器人技术的结合。SH是为机器人应用而设计和实施的，因此其在经桡动脉截肢患者中的假体应用潜力仍有待证明。然而，初步的数据表明，健康的控制使用肌电版本的SH可以抓住和操纵各种各样的对象与最小的培训。拟议的研究旨在追求两个目标：（1）量化SH在intat个体上修复应用的功能能力，以及（2）量化改良SH在肢体丧失患者上的功能能力。目标1（第1年）的结果将用于对SH（插座、基于EMG的控制器、力反馈接口）进行设计修改，以便在患者身上进行测试（目标2，第2年）。对于这两个目标，我们将使用临床医生使用的任务进行上肢功能评估，以及生物力学测试。我们假设患者将学习使用SH，并执行抓握和操作任务，以达到比其当前终端设备所允许的更高水平。这项探索性研究的长期目标是为更大规模的研究提供重要基础，重点关注（1）设计一种可被肢体缺失者接受的低成本、高性能的手部假肢，以及（2）能够执行比当今市售假肢允许的更广泛的ADL任务。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The human hand is critically important for performance of many activities of daily living (ADL), including self- feeding, tool use, and recreation. Therefore, loss of the hand due to traumatic injury or disease significantly limits persons with limb loss' ability to perform ADL and work, thus greatly affecting overall quality of life. Despite advances in hand prostheses design and research, several barriers remain against widespread acceptance of prosthetic hands by persons with limb loss. The two most significant deterrents to prosthetic use are prostheses' limited functionality, e.g., limited ability to perfor ADL, and comfort, which includes fit and weight of prosthesis. Additional factors associated with abandonment of hand prostheses are durability of the prosthetic hand; lack of sensory feedback; cost, which can be significant when considering both the initial and maintenance costs of the more sophisticated hand prostheses, i.e., myoelectric models; and the aesthetic appearance of the prosthetic hand. Therefore, today's commercially available hand prostheses fail to address the needs of persons with limb loss, i.e., regaining some degree of autonomy, functionality, and re-entering the work force. To address the above gaps in hand prosthetic research and access to persons with limb loss, we propose to design a new prosthetic hand based on an artificial hand designed by the University of Pisa and the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), the Pisa/IIT SoftHand (SH). The design of the SH is based on the recently proposed approach of "soft synergies" that capitalizes on the combination of the concept of human hand synergies and novel soft robotics technologies. The SH was designed and implemented for robotics applications, and therefore its potential for prosthetic applications on patients with transradial amputation remains to be demonstrated. However, preliminary data suggest that healthy controls using the myoelectric version of the SH can grasp and manipulate a wide variety of objects with minimal training. The proposed studies were designed to pursue two aims: (1) to quantify the functional capabilities of the SH for prosthetic applications on intat individuals, and (2) to quantify the functional capabilities of the modified SH on persons with limb loss. The results of Aim 1 (year 1) will be used to implement design modifications to the SH (socket, EMG-based controller, force feedback interface) to be tested on patients (Aim 2, year 2). For both aims, we will use tasks used by clinicians for functional assessment of persons with upper limb loss, as well as biomechanical tests. We hypothesize that patients will learn to use the SH and perform grasp and manipulation tasks to a greater level than that allowed by their current terminal devices. The long-term objectives of this exploratory study are to provide an important foundation for a larger study focusing on (1) the design of a low- cost and high-performance hand prosthesis that will be accepted by persons with limb loss, and (2) enable performance of a wider range of ADL tasks than allowed by today's commercially available prostheses.