URI Research
Smart Gloves
The biomedical engineering team at University of Rhode Island is developing a therapy glove designed for reducing the effects of Parkinson's Disease. Because of the way the disease causes a patient's hand to move abnormally, the therapy glove is equipped with a flex sensor in order to track the motion of the hand and be able to save this data to a graph. The glove itself sends the position of the finger to a data collection software, which I developed, that will save the values to a file and allow the user to create motion graphs from the data. The data is sampled every 10 ms, ensuring a high resolution.
Using the motion data, doctors will be able to compare the motion of a regular patient's hand with that of a patient with Parkinson's Disease. Moreover, the doctor will be able to assign physical therapy exercises to the patient to practice at home. The glove can guide and monitor the patient's exercises and send the motion results wirelessly to the doctor, over the internet. Currently, the glove is equipped with a Bluetooth Low Energy microcontroller, and the team is looking to expand the functionality to a wearable sock as well.
The research work was presented at the IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference on November 5th, 2016.
Smart E-textile gloves for quantified measurements in movement disorders - IEEE
