An Internet of Things-enabled smart glove for brain stroke rehabilitation

 Have your competent? doctor evaluate this against all the other hand recovery processes. 100% recovery is the goal! Will your doctor achieve that? How many of the previous patients got to 100% recovery? NONE? So, your doctor isn't any fucking good at all, right!

Don't let your doctor justify incompetence by quoting this shitworthy statement: 'All strokes are different; all stroke recoveries are different'! NO excuses are allowed for incompetence! If you hear that DEMAND THEY BE FIRED!

hand recovery (48 posts to November 2019)

hand opening (4 posts to March 2016)

hand neuroprosthesis (1 post to October 2018)

hand rehabilitation (14 posts to November 2023)

hand robotics (2 posts to July 2024)

hand therapy (2 posts to April 2020)

hand exoskeleton (28 posts to June 2011)

An Internet of Things-enabled smart glove for brain stroke rehabilitation

Author links open overlay panel

,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meadig.2025.100001

Get rights and content

Under a Creative Commons license

Open access

Abstract

A brain stroke is a neurological condition that causes a significant reduction in cerebral blood flow in the specific area of the brain caused by the blockage of a primary brain artery, which leads to disability in affected person. Rehabilitation is essential for individuals to recover from disability, as it is a prolonged and challenging process. The proposed study presents an efficient approach to improve and expedite hand motor skill recovery after brain stroke, which has significance for routine tasks and prolonged process compare to other part of body, with the help of Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The proposed IoT-enabled smart glove for brain stroke rehabilitation system comprises of five Flexi-Force sensors, five flex sensors, a Max30100 sensor, OLED display, Li-po battery, and a ESP32 microcontroller board. It facilitates monitoring of fingers bending angle and grip strength in real-time. A cloud-based platform, ThingsBoard, collects the real-time data generated by the sensors and keeping record for further analysis. The performance of system is evaluated on the basis of correctness of collected data from sensors through calibration and error analysis. The calibration of the flex sensors is also performed by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories-accredited laboratory, which certified high precision with an accuracy of ±2 and an uncertainty of ±0.7, respectively. The system provides a precise, accurate, and economical solution with features like measuring muscle strength, gripping strength, oxygen level, and heart rate and storing data to cloud for further analysis by report generation. which makes it better than the solution found in the existing literature.

Keywords

flexi-force sensor

force sensor

calibration

grip strength

deflection angle

rehabilitation

1. Introduction

Brain stroke is a form of neurological damage caused by a sudden localized lesion in the central nervous system. Regardless of symptom, it may result in vascular malfunction that causes retinal cell loss or irreversible damage to the brain or spinal cord. Hemorrhagic, ischemic, and transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) are the three main forms of brain stroke. An ischemic stroke occurs when blocked arteries cut off blood flow to a specific area of the brain [1]. This leads to inadequate oxygen delivery, ischemia, and death of neurons. Brain stroke symptoms might include sudden paralysis of the muscles, improper speech, sensory deficits, and abnormalities of the eyesight or gait, depending on damage extent and anatomical location. A brain stroke may lead to a number of diseases such as dysphagia, which makes swallowing difficult, hemiparesis or hemiplegia, which causes paralysis or muscle weakness on one side of the body, and aphasia, which impairs ability to speak and write. Post-stroke cognitive abnormalities, including memory impairment and dementia, can significantly affect a patient's quality of life. The severity of such problems depends on the location and extent of cerebral damage, bringing attention to the importance of early detection, rehabilitation, and preventive care [2].

Rehabilitation is necessary for patients to regain functionality following disability, despite being a challenging and prolonged process. The body's activities and functions abruptly decreased following a brain stroke. Neurological recovery occurs over time as a result of medical treatment and the body's natural healing mechanisms. Initially, neurological recovery shows no recovery within hours to days, after that it become slower but more gradual over the next few weeks and months. The recovery curve ultimately attains an equilibrium point, after which improvements would become less noticeable, and create a nonlinear pattern of brain stroke rehabilitation as shown in Figure 1. The effects of brain stroke on motor function lengthy process, especially on hand and feet because hands and feet are away from brain and spinal cord so nerve impulses must travel longer to heal. Conventional rehabilitation techniques are time-consuming and expensive as they frequently depend on subjective evaluation and need repeated clinical visits. Additionally, the physical therapy tools that are complicated, heavy, and difficult to move from one location to another, which makes rehabilitation process expensive and labour-intensive task [3]. The traditional method of measurement using standard clinical instruments such as goniometer and dynameter has limitations like requires manual operation, manual recording of assessments, measure overall grip strength, skill for alignment etc. According to a clinical study [4] examined the potential 5° error of goniometer in measuring range of motion (ROM) and whether wearable devices provide more precise measurements.

1. Download: Download high-res image (306KB)
2. Download: Download full-size image

More at link.