An Experimental Investigation of Essential Hand Tremor Suppression via a Soft Exoskeletal Glove

In this article, a soft exoskeletal glove is proposed for investigating the potential of utilizing Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PAMs) for suppressing hand tremor of Essential Tremor (ET) patients. The glove setup is first presented from a conceptual point, which is focused on the dual investigation of applying local kinesthetic forces exerted via PAMs on the user's finger and on the metacarpal region. An experimental protocol is being derived incorporating a force controller adjusted for both investigated cases, while the efficiency of the proposed setup is extensively evaluated under various motion scenarios performed by an ET-diagnosed volunteer.