Design and preliminary evaluation of a portable instrument for assisting physiotherapists and occupational therapists in the rehabilitation of the hand.

This paper describes a portable instrument designed to monitor progress accomplished by patients participating in a hand rehabilitation program. The instrument is driven by a microcontroller and features signal conditioning circuits to measure and record the strength and duration of hand contractions. An alphanumeric display provides the patient with performance indications to allow biofeedback reinforcement, and clear instructions on how to perform the prescribed exercises. Exercise data acquired by the portable instrument can be transferred to a host computer for analysis and archival storage. Results of a preliminary clinical evaluation in 14 patients are presented.