CN108371609B

CN108371609B - Soft driver for assisting extension and abduction of thumb of human hand

Info

Publication number: CN108371609B
Application number: CN201810258913.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 陈文斌; 熊蔡华; 袁路林; 李培民; 刘成龙; 杨瑞嘉
Original assignee: Nanjing Rui Shi De Medical Science And Technology Co Ltd; Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Current assignee: Nanjing Rui Shi De Medical Science And Technology Co Ltd; Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Priority date: 2018-03-27
Filing date: 2018-03-27
Publication date: 2020-02-14
Anticipated expiration: 2038-03-27
Also published as: CN108371609A

Abstract

The invention discloses a soft driver and gloves for assisting the extension and abduction of the thumb of a human hand. The soft driver comprises an inner layer silicone tube, an outer layer silicone tube, a Kevlar fiber wire and two sections of glass fiber cloth; the front end of the inner silicone tube is closed, and the rear end of the inner silicone tube is provided with an opening for connecting with an air pressure or hydraulic driving device; the part of the outer wall of the inner silicone tube, which corresponds to the metacarpal bone of the thumb, is wound with the Kevlar fiber wire in a single spiral mode, and the part of the outer wall of the inner silicone tube, which corresponds to the phalanx of the thumb, is wound with the Kevlar fiber wire in a double spiral mode; the two sections of glass fiber cloth are adhered to the back side of the inner layer silicone tube away from the finger, and the positions of the two sections of glass fiber cloth respectively correspond to the thumb metacarpal bone and proximal phalanx connecting joint, and the proximal phalanx and distal phalanx connecting joint; the outer silicone tube fixes the Kevlar fiber thread and the glass fiber cloth on the outer wall of the inner silicone tube. By carrying the soft driver on the glove, the thumb can be assisted to carry out stretching and abduction rehabilitation training.

Description

Soft driver for assisting extension and abduction of thumb of human hand

Technical Field

The invention belongs to the field of hand joint auxiliary rehabilitation robots, and particularly relates to a soft driver and gloves for assisting extension and abduction of a thumb of a hand.

Background

Nowadays, the population of society is getting more and more aged, the number of people with hemiplegia caused by diseases such as stroke is getting bigger and bigger, and meanwhile, the number of people with hand motion function damage caused by accidents such as production accidents and traffic accidents is also increasing year by year. The patients can not take care of themselves due to the hand movement dysfunction, and the pressure is brought to families and society. The literature indicates that most patients have their fingers in flexion and that the muscles are stiffer to varying degrees, which is necessary to assist the patient in performing the finger extension opening movement by means of external forces. The traditional hand rehabilitation therapy mostly adopts one-to-one doctors to carry out mechanical actions such as kneading, pulling and the like, meanwhile, the rehabilitation state of a patient is completely evaluated by the doctors, the rehabilitation training consumes manpower, meanwhile, the treatment cost is high, and the requirements of most patients cannot be met. The hand exoskeleton rehabilitation software robot can assist rehabilitation training to save a large amount of manpower and material resources, can evaluate the rehabilitation level of a patient in real time and quantitatively, and can make corresponding rehabilitation training strategies according to the rehabilitation condition of the patient to carry out rehabilitation activities step by step so as to achieve the best rehabilitation training effect and reduce the rehabilitation period of the patient.

The motion of the thumb of the human hand is more complex than that of the other four fingers, and not only bending and stretching but also side swinging can be performed, so that the mobility of the thumb is one more than that of the other four fingers. In rehabilitation, rehabilitation training of the thumb requires that it not only bend and stretch, but also assist in abduction. However, at the present stage, the hand rehabilitation robot only can assist the hand rehabilitation robot to perform bending and stretching motions, so that the rehabilitation progress of the thumb is far slower than that of the other four fingers, and the abduction function of the thumb is difficult to effectively train.

Disclosure of Invention

Aiming at the defects or the improvement requirements of the prior art, the invention provides a soft driver for assisting the extension and the abduction of the thumb of a human hand, which aims to wrap the phalanges and the metacarpals of the thumb by winding a single-spiral and double-spiral mixed line through Kevlar fiber lines and paste glass fiber cloth to limit the degree of freedom of the thumb, thereby realizing the simulation of the bending extension and the abduction motion of the thumb and solving the technical problem that the existing hand rehabilitation robot cannot assist the abduction of the thumb.

In order to achieve the above object, according to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a soft body driver for assisting the extension and abduction of a thumb of a human hand, comprising an inner silicone tube, an outer silicone tube, a kevlar fiber thread and two sections of glass fiber cloth;

the part of the outer wall of the inner silicone tube, which corresponds to the metacarpal bone of the thumb, is wound with the Kevlar fiber wire in a single spiral mode, and the part of the outer wall of the inner silicone tube, which corresponds to the phalanx of the thumb, is wound with the Kevlar fiber wire in a double spiral mode; the two sections of glass fiber cloth are adhered to the back side of the inner layer silicone tube away from the finger, and the positions of the two sections of glass fiber cloth respectively correspond to the thumb metacarpal bone and proximal phalanx connecting joint, and the proximal phalanx and distal phalanx connecting joint; the outer layer silicone tube is sleeved outside the inner layer silicone tube and is tightly combined with the inner layer silicone tube, and the Kevlar fiber line and the glass fiber cloth are fixed on the outer wall of the inner layer silicone tube.

Furthermore, the part of the inner silicone tube located at the rear end of the metacarpal bone of the thumb is integrally formed with a flat silicone seat, the part of the inner silicone tube located at the front end of the flat silicone seat is of a semi-cylindrical structure, the plane of the semi-cylindrical structure is arranged back to the fingers, and glass fiber cloth at two ends of the inner silicone tube is pasted on the plane of the semi-cylindrical structure.

Furthermore, an outer layer silicone tube is sleeved outside the semi-cylindrical structure, three sections of concave silicon rubber fixing seats are integrally formed on the side, facing the fingers, of the outer layer silicone tube corresponding to the positions of the metacarpal bones, the proximal phalanx and the distal phalanx of the thumb, the cross section of a connecting part between every two adjacent concave silicon rubber fixing seats is semicircular, and the semicircular straight edge is arranged back to the fingers.

Furthermore, the concave silicon rubber fixing seat corresponding to the metacarpal bone of the thumb is connected with the flat silicon rubber seat and is arranged conformally.

Furthermore, the glass fiber cloth is rectangular, the width of the glass fiber cloth is consistent with the width of the finger, and the length of the glass fiber cloth is slightly longer than the movable outer diameter of the finger joint so as to cover the movable range of the finger joint; the pore diameter of the glass fiber cloth is 0.4 x 0.4 mm.

Further, the software driver includes: the device comprises a soft driver fixing sleeve, a flexible bending sensor fixing sleeve, a rubber fixing seat, a flexible pressure sensor fixing sleeve and a finger sleeve;

the outer silicone tube is fixed in the soft driver fixing sleeve;

the flexible bending sensor is arranged between the lower surface of the outer-layer silicone tube and the inner bottom surface of the soft driver fixing sleeve along the axis direction and is fixed on the inner bottom surface of the soft driver fixing sleeve through the flexible bending sensor fixing sleeve;

the rubber fixing seat is sleeved at the rear end of the flat fixing seat of the soft driver, and the lower part of the rubber fixing seat is fixedly connected with the rear end of the soft driver fixing sleeve;

the flexible pressure sensor is fixed on the bottom surface inside the finger stall through the flexible pressure sensor fixing sleeve, and the finger stall is fixed on the lower surface of the end part of the soft driver fixing sleeve.

Furthermore, at least one of the finger stall, the soft driver fixing stall, the flexible bending sensor fixing stall and the flexible pressure sensor fixing stall is made of aramid elastic cloth.

Further, the finger sleeve is smaller in size than the normal thumb to provide a suitable pre-tightening force to tighten the ends of the distal and proximal phalanges of the patient's thumb.

Furthermore, a snap fastener is arranged below the position, corresponding to the rubber fixing seat, of the soft driver fixing sleeve and is used for being connected with a snap fastener correspondingly matched with the glove.

To achieve the above objects, the present invention also provides a glove for assisting the extension and abduction of a thumb of a human hand, comprising any one of the soft body actuators described above.

In general, compared with the prior art, the above technical solution contemplated by the present invention can obtain the following beneficial effects:

1. according to the invention, the single-spiral and double-spiral mixed wires are wound by the Kevlar fiber wires to wrap the phalanges and metacarpals of the thumb, and the glass fiber cloth is adhered to the two finger joints corresponding to the thumb to limit the degree of freedom of the thumb, so that bending motion is generated at the double-spiral Kevlar fiber wires, and deflection motion is generated at the single-spiral Kevlar fiber wires, thereby realizing the simulation of bending extension and abduction of the thumb, and being capable of driving the fingers of a patient suffering from stroke or a patient suffering from finger muscle damage to perform extension motion and abduction motion rehabilitation training.

2. According to the invention, the soft driver is used as the execution mechanism, the main material is the silicone tube, the shape of the soft driver can be changed to adapt to the current environment, the hand of a wearer cannot be damaged, the safety is high, the soft driver is driven by hydraulic pressure or air pressure, and the power ratio is very high.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a diagram of the phalanges of a thumb of a human hand;

FIG. 2 is a frame diagram of a soft rehabilitation device for assisting the thumb in performing stretching and twisting movements;

FIG. 3 is a view of a soft rehabilitation device auxiliary member for assisting the thumb in performing stretching and twisting movements, wherein (a) is an exploded view and (b) is an assembled view;

FIG. 4 is a diagram of the configuration of a soft rehabilitation device for assisting the thumb in performing stretching and twisting movements;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a driver of a soft rehabilitation device for assisting the thumb in performing stretching and twisting movements;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of the driver of a soft rehabilitation device for assisting the thumb in performing stretching and twisting movements;

fig. 7 is a structure view of the rubber holder.

The same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like elements or structures, wherein:

1-soft driver, 2-flexible bending sensor fixing sleeve, 3-flexible bending sensor, 4-soft driver fixing sleeve, 5-finger sleeve, 6-flexible pressure sensor fixing sleeve, 7-flexible pressure sensor, 8-rubber fixing base, 9-4mm air pipe, 10-snap button, 11-soft driver upper part, 12-finger-like soft driver end part, 13-soft driver air pipe channel, 14-concave silicon rubber fixing base, 15-silicon rubber body, 16-single spiral Kevlar fiber wire, 17-double spiral Kevlar fiber wire, 18-glass fiber cloth, 19-soft driver inflation expansion diagram, 20-soft driver inflation elongation diagram, 21-soft driver inflation bending and twisting diagram, 22-outer ring of the rubber fixing seat, 23-inner ring of the rubber fixing seat and 24-curved surface of the bottom of the rubber fixing seat.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention is described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention. In addition, the technical features involved in the embodiments of the present invention described below may be combined with each other as long as they do not conflict with each other.

Before the present embodiment is explained in detail, the bio-skeleton structure of the hand will be described.

Fig. 1 shows the skeletal structure of the left hand as viewed from the back side of the hand, and as shown in fig. 1, the thumb is attached to the carpal bone and has two phalanges, namely the proximal phalanx and the distal phalanx. Wherein the proximal phalanx is connected with the metacarpal bone of the thumb, and the thumb can complete the bending, stretching and abduction movements. Most fingers of patients with hand dysfunction are in a bending state, external force is needed to assist the patients to do stretching movement, and the thumbs of the patients are in a retraction state, and external force is needed to assist the patients to do abduction movement.

Referring to fig. 2 and 3, the present invention provides a soft driver for assisting a thumb to perform stretching and abduction motions, comprising: the flexible bending sensor comprises a soft driver 1, a flexible bending sensor fixing sleeve 2, a flexible bending sensor 3, a soft driver fixing sleeve 4, a finger sleeve 5, a flexible pressure sensor fixing sleeve 6, a flexible pressure sensor 7, a rubber fixing seat 8, a 4mm air pipe 9 and a snap fastener 10. The soft driver 1 is mainly made of silicon rubber, Kevlar fiber and glass fiber cloth through a special substrate mixing method, and the finger stall comprises a finger stall and a driver fixing sleeve.

The soft driver 1 is fixed on the finger sleeve through the driver fixing sleeve 4, the flexible bending sensor 3 is arranged along the axis direction of the soft driver 1 and is fixed on the middle layer of the finger sleeve through the flexible sensor fixing sleeve 2, and the flexible air pipe 9 is inserted into the air pipe opening of the soft driver 1 and generates certain pretightening force through silicon rubber of the body. The air duct of the soft driver passes through the inner wall 23 of the rubber fixing seat 8 (as shown in fig. 7). The aperture of the inner wall 23 of the rubber fixing seat is smaller than the outer wall of the air pipe channel of the soft driver, so that the air pipe channel can be tightly buckled, and the gas in the soft driver is prevented from leaking. The bottom 24 of the rubber fixing seat 8 is connected with the upper portion of the snap fastener 10, the bottom 24 of the rubber fixing seat is a concave curved surface and can be attached to a palm bone of a hand, and comfort is improved. In flexible pressure sensor 7 was fixed in finger stall 5 through the fixed cover of flexible pressure sensor, finger stall 5 made up with finger stall 4 and linked together, it all adopted the elasticity cloth, can guarantee that software driver and finger closely laminate.

Fig. 4 is an external view of the soft driver, wherein the end portion 12 of the soft driver is flat and the top portion 13 of the soft driver is rectangular, and the cross section of the soft driver is semicircular. The knuckle fixing seat of the soft driver is in a concave surface shape, one of the knuckle fixing seat is provided with three sections which respectively correspond to the metacarpal bone, the proximal phalanx and the distal phalanx, and the rest part of the knuckle fixing seat is in a semicircular section. The device is matched with the convex surface of the hand, so that the driver can be ensured not to deviate along the axis of the finger when driving the finger to do stretching movement, and a good auxiliary movement effect is achieved.

The structure of the soft driver is schematically shown in fig. 5, and the soft driver comprises a single-spiral kevlar fiber wire 16, a double-spiral kevlar fiber wire 17, a silicon rubber body 15 and a glass fiber cloth 18. The glass fiber cloth 18 is divided into two pieces, the length of the glass fiber cloth is one half of that of a human finger joint, the glass fiber cloth is respectively pasted at the bottom of the flexible bending drive according to a certain distance, the single Kevlar fiber wire 16 is wound outside the soft drive in a fixed spiral mode and is wound once to form a single spiral line mode, and the length of the single spiral line mode is the length of a metacarpal bone. The double-helix Kevlar fiber wire 17 is wound outside the soft driver by a fixed helical angle and is wound twice back and forth to form a double-helix form.

In this embodiment, an inner silicone tube is obtained by casting and molding through a mold, a circle of spiral kevlar fiber thread is wound around the inner silicone tube near the front end of the metacarpal bone, the weaving angle of the spiral kevlar fiber thread is 4 °, the length of the spiral kevlar fiber thread is the length of the metacarpal bone of the thumb, the spiral kevlar fiber thread is continuously wound forwards (towards the direction of the finger tip), the weaving angle of the spiral kevlar fiber thread is 5 °, and the spiral kevlar fiber thread is wound backwards to the tail end of the metacarpal bone when the spiral kevlar fiber thread is wound to the front end (the position of. At this time, the metacarpal bone part of the soft driver 1 is a single spiral line, and the phalange part is a double spiral line. At single spiral department, the driver can take place torsional motion for the thumb carries out abduction motion, and double helix department, the driver can take place bending motion, can assist the thumb to carry out extension motion.

In this embodiment, two pieces of rectangular glass fiber cloth are adhered to the inner wall of the soft driver, the width of the glass fiber cloth is consistent with the width of the finger, the length of the glass fiber cloth is slightly longer than the movable outer diameter of the finger joint, the movable range of the finger joint can be wrapped, and the aperture of the glass fiber cloth is 0.4 x 0.4 mm. After the Kevlar fiber wire is wound and the glass fiber cloth is adhered, the silicone rubber image is directly poured for the second time on the periphery of the inner silicone tube to obtain an outer silicone tube, and the outer silicone tube, the inner silicone tube and the flat fixing seat are tightly combined into a whole. The outer wall can fix Kevlar fiber line and glass fiber cloth, plays the restriction effect simultaneously in the deformation process of actuator, lets the actuator produce specific bending and extension motion, and the outer wall lower part of four fingers flexible ware has three sections concave silicon rubber fixing bases 14, and it pours together with the outer wall and takes shape, and its effect is for keeping driver and the better laminating of staff, prevents that actuator and patient's finger from taking place to break away from.

The fingertip fixing sleeve and the knuckle fixing sleeve are made of aramid fiber super elastic cloth, the size of the fingertip fixing sleeve and the knuckle fixing sleeve is smaller than that of a normal thumb of a person, appropriate pre-tightening force can be provided, the thumb of the patient can be tightly bound, and the fingertip fixing sleeve is used for fixing the ends of a far knuckle phalanx and a near knuckle phalanx.

The flexible bending sensor fixing sleeve 2 is made of aramid fabric, is positioned at the bottom of the soft driver and above the middle layer of the finger sleeve 5, and is fixed in the flexible bending sensor fixing sleeve, so that the flexible bending sensor can move together with the finger and is used for collecting the bending angle of the finger.

The flexible pressure sensor fixing sleeve 6 is made of aramid fabric, is positioned at the upper part of the inner layer of the finger tip sleeve, is fixed in the flexible pressure sensor fixing sleeve, can ensure that the flexible pressure sensor and a finger move together, and is used for collecting pressure values of the finger tip and the finger tip sleeve.

The 8 hole sites of rubber fixing base are passed to the flat fixing base rear end of inlayer silicone tube, and the size of hole site is less than flat fixing base rear end, can press from both sides tight flat fixing base through self elasticity to fixed software driver 1.

The bottom of the rubber fixing seat 8 is a curved surface and can be well attached to a human hand, the bottom of the rubber fixing seat is sewn and connected with cloth extending out of the tail of the finger stall 5, a sub-buckle (namely a hook surface) of the snap buckle 10 is sewn below the cloth of the finger stall 5 at the corresponding position of the rubber fixing seat 8 and can be connected with a semi-finger glove of any fabric, and common wool semi-finger gloves on the market can also be used.

The working principle of the soft driver is shown in figures 6 and 19, and the semicircular closed silicon rubber inner cavity is inflated into the inner cavity without any restraint on the periphery, and the semicircular closed silicon rubber inner cavity can be expanded along the axial direction and expanded along the radial direction and tilted upwards. 20 shows that the double-spiral Kevlar fiber wires wound on the outer wall of the semicircular rubber inner cavity are inflated into the inner cavity, and the Kevlar fiber wires can prevent the double-spiral Kevlar fiber wires from expanding along the radial direction, so that the soft driver can only extend along the axial direction and tilt upwards. The glass fiber cloth can not be stretched, the sticking surface can be prevented from extending, the place where the glass fiber cloth is stuck can not extend along the axial direction under the state that the soft driver is inflated, the extension of the upper part of the axial line of the glass fiber cloth is larger than the extension of the lower part of the axial line in the axial direction of the driver, so that the glass fiber cloth can form a bending state, and in a single spiral line part, due to uneven stress, the driver can be twisted and deformed, and finally, the composite motion of palm bone end torsion, distal phalangeal joint bending and proximal phalangeal bending is presented. 21, glass fiber cloth is adhered to the bottom section of the soft driver.

The flexible bending sensor of the soft driver can collect the finger movement angle information when the soft driver assists the finger of the patient to perform stretching movement. The flexible bending sensor is connected with the voltage acquisition module to acquire the bending angle information of the finger.

The flexible pressure sensor of the soft driver can collect the pressure information of the finger tip when the soft driver assists the finger of the patient to perform stretching movement, and the spasm of the patient can be prevented by detecting the pressure information. The flexible pressure sensor is connected to the voltage acquisition module to acquire the finger pressure information.

When the soft driver for assisting the four-finger knuckle to complete the stretching movement is used, the patient wears the device which is made of fully flexible materials, so that the whole device can be in the same flexing state as the fingers of the patient after wearing. Finger stall, knuckle cover can guarantee that software driver and patient's finger closely laminate, and the effect of wearing the software driver repertoire power source on four fingers like this drives patient's finger and extends and abduct the motion when extending the motion, and the help patient carries out the rehabilitation training.

The device for controlling the air pressure in the soft driver cavity can adopt conventional air pressure and hydraulic devices, such as an electric air compressor, a foot-operated air pump, an electric hydraulic machine and the like.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the foregoing is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the invention, and that any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A soft driver for assisting the extension and abduction of a thumb of a human hand is characterized by comprising an inner layer silicone tube, an outer layer silicone tube, a Kevlar fiber wire and two sections of glass fiber cloth;

the front end of the inner silicone tube is closed, and the rear end of the inner silicone tube is provided with an opening for connecting with an air pressure or hydraulic driving device; the part of the outer wall of the inner silicone tube, which corresponds to the metacarpal bone of the thumb, is wound with the Kevlar fiber wire in a single spiral mode, and the part of the outer wall of the inner silicone tube, which corresponds to the phalanx of the thumb, is wound with the Kevlar fiber wire in a double spiral mode; the two sections of glass fiber cloth are adhered to the back side of the inner layer silicone tube away from the finger, and the positions of the two sections of glass fiber cloth respectively correspond to the thumb metacarpal bone and proximal phalanx connecting joint, and the proximal phalanx and distal phalanx connecting joint; the outer layer silicone tube is sleeved outside the inner layer silicone tube and is tightly combined with the inner layer silicone tube, and the Kevlar fiber line and the glass fiber cloth are fixed on the outer wall of the inner layer silicone tube.

2. The soft body driver for assisting the extension and abduction of the thumb of a human hand according to claim 1, wherein the part of the inner silicone tube positioned at the rear end of the metacarpal bone of the thumb is integrally formed with a flat silicone seat, the part of the inner silicone tube positioned at the front end of the flat silicone seat is of a semi-cylindrical structure, the plane of the semi-cylindrical structure is arranged opposite to the fingers, and glass fiber cloth at two ends is adhered to the plane of the semi-cylindrical structure.

3. The soft body driver for assisting the extension and abduction of the thumb of a human hand according to claim 2, wherein the outer silicone tube is sleeved outside the semi-cylindrical structure, three sections of concave silicone rubber fixing seats are integrally formed on the finger-facing side of the outer silicone tube corresponding to the positions of the metacarpal bone, the proximal phalanx and the distal phalanx of the thumb, the cross section of the connecting part between the adjacent concave silicone rubber fixing seats is semicircular, and the straight edge of the semicircular part is arranged back to the finger.

4. The soft drive of claim 3, wherein the concave silicone rubber holder corresponding to the metacarpal bone of the thumb is attached to the flat silicone rubber holder and is disposed conformally.

5. The soft drive for assisting the extension and abduction of a human thumb of claim 1, wherein the fiberglass cloth is rectangular, has a width consistent with the width of a finger, and has a length slightly longer than the movable outer diameter of the finger joint so as to cover the movable range of the finger joint; the pore diameter of the glass fiber cloth is 0.4 x 0.4 mm.

6. The soft body driver for assisting the extension and abduction of a human thumb as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 5, comprising: the device comprises a soft driver fixing sleeve, a flexible bending sensor fixing sleeve, a rubber fixing seat, a flexible pressure sensor fixing sleeve and a finger sleeve;

the outer silicone tube is fixed in the soft driver fixing sleeve;

7. The soft drive for assisting extension and abduction of a human thumb of claim 6, wherein at least one of the finger stall, the soft drive holster, the flexible bend sensor holster and the flexible pressure sensor holster is made of aramid stretch cloth.

8. The soft drive for assisting in extending and abducting a thumb of a human hand of claim 7, wherein the finger stall is sized smaller than a normal thumb to provide a suitable preload force to tighten the ends of the distal phalanx and the proximal phalanx of the patient's thumb.

9. The soft drive of claim 6, wherein the position of the soft drive housing corresponding to the rubber mount is provided with a snap fastener for engaging a corresponding mating snap fastener on the glove.

10. A glove for assisting the extension and abduction of the thumb of a human hand, comprising a soft body actuator according to any one of claims 1 to 9.