Design and development of a portable exoskeleton based CPM machine for rehabilitation of hand injuries

Human hand is easy to be injured. As physical rehabilitation therapy after a hand operation always takes a long time, the curative effect gets worse and the social and financial hardship with physical deterioration can be caused. A CPM machine is a mechanism based on the rehabilitation theory of continuous passive motion (CPM). To improve rehabilitation results and validate the CPM theory we have developed a portable exoskeleton based CPM machine. The device can be easily attached and also be adjusted to fit different hand sizes. And during the finger's flexion and extension motion the machine can always exert perpendicular forces on the finger phalanges. It can achieve the precise control of scope, force and speed of the moving fingers. Finally based on its mechanical structure, a kinematic validation and simulation including kinematic simulation and dynamic simulation have been carried out.