Relative Motion Orthosis

Re-designing a hand orthosis was my first project with CoRE. I reached out to Dr. Scott Telfer during the winter quarter of my sophomore year (2020). After a brief tour of the lab and an interview, Dr. Telfer offered me a position based on my previous experiences with CAD. I originally emailed CoRE because I was interested in their work with experimental biomechanics; however, I was excited to participate in any hands-on opportunities. The first project I will work on is redesigning a hand splint for post-surgery recovery. The hypothesis was that flexing or extending the third finger during recovery would improve overall hand flexibility. There was a preexisting design for the splint; however, I was tasked to redesign it to be more comfortable and adaptable for users. In order to do work with Rhino3D, I needed to learn python and become familiar with python interface in Rhino3d. Furthermore, I had to take a course on how to ethically involve humans subjects in experiments.

Unfortunately, before we could conduct clinical trials, the pandemic begun. Since all classes remained virtual during the summer, I was not able to meet with my advisor in person. As a result, I was not able to ask as many questions or receive direct help with my code. This experience taught me to be proactive and learn how to troubleshoot my own problems. The code first prompts for left/right hand, a new build, and flex/extend. Then, the next pop up menu asks for various personal preferences and an image upload. After the image is uploaded, the code prompts for various reference points on the hand. The main change I made to the original design was adding fillets on the third finger hole so that it could be worn more comfortably. After the build is done, the code asks if the user wants to save these specific dimensions as a text file. The text file can be uploaded instead of an image at the start of the code. This would be part of the option to say that it is an old build in the first pop up menu. After uploading the text file, the build will be made based off of the dimensions saved in the text file. This project was more reliant on python than I expected. I'm glad I learned not only a new skill, but I was able to independently teach myself an entirely new coding language!

Since the pandemic lasted longer than expected, I continued to work virtually during my junior year of undergrad. Our inability to run clinical trials led to me creating a computational model to prove the effectiveness of the hand orthosis. I first used OpenSim to simulate different tendon motions, finger positions that would be caused by the orthosis, and the tendon reaction force. I also further explored developing a computational model in MatLab and Python using the Parallel Hill Model. The results from the computational model showed that flexing your finger reduced the amount of force in the tendon of interest. Therefore, the computational models support the hypothesis that the designed orthosis would reduce force on the recovering tendon and reduce the risk of breakage after surgery.