An EMG-controlled system combining FES and a soft exoskeleton glove for hand rehabilitation of stroke patients

In this paper, we present the development of a hybrid system which supports an active rehabilitation of the closing and the opening of the hand. The particularity of this system is to combine a soft exoskeleton glove, the SEM Glove™, and functional electrical stimulations (FES) to perform both types of hand movements. The created system is also a suggestion of improvement for the SEM Glove™ that is already commercialized by the BIOSERVO company and usable for hand closing rehabilitation only. In our study, a FES system was associated to this glove in order to provide the missing hand opening rehabilitation. To engage the patient in his rehabilitation, our system is electromyogram (EMG)-controlled and is activated according to the patient movement intentions. EMG signals of the muscles involved in the extension and flexion of the fingers were recorded and then processed in order to detect muscle activations. The control of the different elements of the system was then executed based on the results of this detection.
The preliminary results demonstrated that the designed hybrid system shows good performances in detecting correctly the intention of a healthy user. Some improvements could still be made in the signal processing to increase the sensitivity of detection, but we proved that the hybrid system is already operational to assist the hand movements of a healthy user.