John MacDuffie Woodburn

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Passive Hand Orthotic

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Spool Locking Design

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Initial Tension Box Design

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Smoothing Articulating Surfaces

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Exploded View of Tension Box

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Assembled View of Tension Box

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Clip Design

 

Down ABOUT "PASSIVE HAND ORTHOTIC"

The passive hand orthotic is designed to alleviate the complications endured by emiplegia patients. Emiplegia of the arms and hands is a common complication of mild to severe strokes wherein patient's hands can be closed through normal neuromuscular pathways but cannot consciuosly be opened through the damaged one. The passive orthotic was a team design project for the McKay Othopedic Institute at UPenn. Design incorporated four major components:

 

1. Light, adjustable finger clips which fit comfortably and snugly around each phalange segment. The finger clips contain small guide holes which parallely align actuating material to the finger.

2. Elastic and mechanically robust actuating material that safely and adequately loads the fingers throughout tension and flexion.

3. Tension adjustment box that serves as a base for the actuating material and allows the patient to increase and decrease the load across the elastic material to fit their comfort and actuating force needs.

4. Form-fitting wrist brace that the tension box can be anchored and where the thumb could be held in place