Design of a multifunctional body powered prosthetic hand

Nowadays the design of prosthetic hands is mainly focused on myo-electric control for more functionality. And easy producible 3d printed prosthetics to lower the costs of a custom prosthesis. As a result of this change of focus, the body powered prosthetic hands currently on the market are mainly simple clamping mechanisms with no innovative...

The design of a fully 3D printed easy-to-assemble and highly functional body-powered hand prosthesis for low-resource countries

Background: The majority of the amputated population is living in low-resource countries, but only a small minority has access to rehabilitating services. The accessibility of upper limb prostheses in these countries is poor due to limited technical and medical resources. 3D printing is regarded as a promising manufacturing alternative in...

The frequently replaceable prosthetic hand concept: The design of an appealing solution for growing children with an upper limb deficiency

Children missing an upper limb face a wide range of issues. Besides the difficulties adult prosthetic users face, such as unsatisfactory function, comfort, and appearance, children also have to deal with the challenges associated with growth. The goal of this thesis was to design an appealing solution for these growing children with an upper...

Increased Pinch Force of Body Powered Prosthetic Hand with Pneumatic Force Servo

In the Netherlands, there are around 3750 patients suffering from an upper limb deficiency. Many different prosthetic hands have been designed to give these people the function of their hand back. Of the people who own such a prosthetic hand, about forty percent does not wear their hand and about half of the wearers does not use all of the...

The Lightweight Delft Cylinder Hand, the First Multi-Articulating Hand That Meets the Basic User Requirements

Rejection rates of upper limb prostheses are high (23-45%). Amputees indicate that the highest design priority should be reduction of the mass of the prosthetic device. Despite all efforts, the mass of the new prosthetic hands is 35-73% higher than that of older hands. Furthermore current hands are thicker than a human hand, they operate slower...

Comparison of mechanical properties of silicone and PVC (polyvinylchloride) cosmetic gloves for articulating hand prostheses

Current articulating electric and body-powered hands have a lower pinch force (15–34 N) than electric hands with stiff fingers (55–100 N). The cosmetic glove, which covers a hand prosthesis, negatively affects the mechanical efficiency of a prosthesis. The goal of this study is to mechanically compare polyvinylchloride (PVC) and silicone...

Natural grasping, design and evaluation of a voluntary closing adaptive hand prosthesis

Replacement of a missing hand by an artificial alternative remains one of the biggest challenges in rehabilitation. Although many different terminal devices are available, around 27% of the amputees does not actively use their device and 20% totally refrains from wearing it. There are various reasons for prosthesis abandonment, e.g. wearing...

Towards better perception: A first perspective on the perception of operating force and cable displacement in shoulder harness controlled body powered prostheses

The available shoulder harness controlled prostheses do no fulfill the requirements of the users. It is unknown for which operating forces and cable displacements the user can make good use of proprioceptive feedback without feeling pain, discomfort or fatigue. These operating forces and cable displacements can be related to grasping forces and...

Efficiency of voluntary opening hand and hook prosthetic devices, 24 years of development?

Quantitative data on the mechanical performance of upper-limb prostheses are very important in prostheses development and selection. The primary goal of this study was to objectively evaluate the mechanical performance of adult-size voluntary opening (VO) prosthetic terminal devices and select the best tested device. A second goal was to see...

Efficiency of voluntary closing hand and hook prostheses

The Delft Institute of Prosthetics and Orthotics has started a research program to develop an improved voluntary closing, body-powered hand prosthesis. Five commercially available voluntary closing terminal devices were mechanically tested: three hands [Hosmer APRL VC hand, Hosmer Soft VC Male hand, Otto Bock 8K24] and two hooks [Hosmer APRL VC...