Measuring Finger Movement in Arthritic Patients Using Wearable Glove Technology
In society today, arthritis remains a disabling and agonizing disease. The term arthritis is used to describe more than 100 rheumatic diseases and 67 million (25%) adults aged 18 years and older will have doctor-diagnosed arthritis by the year 2030, and an estimated 25 million adults (37%) of those with arthritis will report arthritis-attributable activity limitations. In addition to these estimates, the personal treatment required for each individual becomes limited with every new patient as there is an increasing gap between the ideal and realistic number of doctors demanded. As a result, traditional measurements of arthritis requires exhaustive personal examination and labour so that medical staff may offer hasty, ambitious, and at many times, unconstructive conclusions that may hinder the enactment and analysis of arthritis rehabilitation. If patients are to receive the care they need and doctors the time, scientists require more accurate and less laborious methods of analysis in regards to arthritis consultation. Therefore, an improved measurement in the region of arthritis rehabilitation is to be welcomed. Wearable Data Glove solutions are increasingly proving to offer reliable, accurate assessments with high cost effectiveness.
This project is concerned with the development of an accurate hand movement measurement tool. This tool will assist medical clinicians, specifically rheumatologists and orthopeadic hand surgeons, with measuring the loss of movement in the human hand. This has many direct applications within medical practice including diagnosis, prognosis and recovery assessment of patients with conditions specific to the hand e.g. to measure how far a patient can close their fingers (with a flare up in arthritis patients may not be able to make a fist).
Current measurement techniques available to clinicians are either invasive (x-rays) or rely heavily on manual evaluation such as vision and touch which are dependent on training and experience and results often vary between observers. Measuring tape is commonly used to measure distances e.g. between palm and fingertip which also leads to issues with accuracy, as well as patient self questionnaires which allow for interpretation.
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Check out the 5DT dataglove here. We have one of these.
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Check out the Virtual Realities P5 Glove. We have two of these.
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The peregrine gaming glove may be more suited to rehabilitation/sports injury areas.
The Virtual Realities P5 gaming glove may be more suited to virtual world or gaming environments.