International Journal of Engineering and Technology

The general design motivation for orthoses acting in parallel with a human limb is to improve human locomotion capability, develop joint strength, and increase endurance through physical rehabilitation exercises for the human limbs. The development of such rehabilitation devices improves the quality and frequency of physical rehabilitation exercises that a patient has to undergo during treatment. This paper describes the design of a grounded hand and arm rehabilitation orthosis. The orthosis provides bi-directional haptic feedback to the arm and joints of the fingers and the novel dynamic counterweight balancing mechanism prevents the effects of loading on the user's arm.