Soft Active Hand Orthosis

The invention relates to a hand orthosis (1) for assisting the movements of a user's hand. The hand orthosis comprises a soft glove (2) adapted to receive at least a part of the user's hand with finger sections of the glove receiving each of the user's fingers. It further comprises at least one actuator box (3), and a power transmission (4) for transferring forces from the at least one actuator box to different parts of the glove via exo-tendons (5). The exo-tendons are arranged on a dorsal side, on a palmar side, or on both a dorsal side and a palmar side of the glove. The exo-tendons are arranged so that the glove can assist flexion, extension, or both extension and flexion of the fingers, respectively and so that the exo-tendons act on the fingers to produce motion that mimics the movement of a human hand. The hand orthosis provides different grasp types, self- adaptation of the fingers' motion to the shape of the object, and physiologically appropriate distribution of finger forces.