Design and Development of an Ergonomic Finger Grip Enhancer For The Elderly
As people age, their hand and finger functions start to deteriorate due to the degradation of body muscles, nerves and brain coordination. This degeneration also affects the fine motor coordination of elderly people, which eventually affects their quality of life as poor hand function reduces a pers...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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2021
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| Summary: | As people age, their hand and finger functions start to deteriorate due to the degradation of body muscles, nerves and brain coordination. This degeneration also affects the fine motor coordination of elderly people, which eventually affects their quality of life as poor hand function reduces a person’s ability to carry out basic activities of daily living. Although finger exercises and a healthy living can slow down pinch function deterioration, an innovative solution which enhances the pinching abilities of elderly people is much needed. Thus, the aim of this research is to design and develop a finger grip enhancer that facilitates the day-to-day pinching activities of elderly people. The TRIZ methodology was used to identify the root cause of poor finger pinching abilities among elderly people, followed by a product design process. Systematic selection methods and finite element analysis were used to validate component material suitability and device safety. The final prototype was designed to facilitate finger flexion on the thumb and the index finger with two and three degrees of freedom respectively. The complete weight of the device is 520 g which allowed for improved portability and sufficient force exertion (13.9 N) for day-to-day pinching. In order to test for device usability, a purposive sampling was used to select elderly subjects aged 60 years and above to perform a pinch-lift-hold test on various household objects. The pinch force before and after utilising the device was measured. Using Minitab 18, the statistical significance of using this device was analysed with the paired sample t-test. With the help of this device, elderly subjects were found to have significantly improved their pinching abilities in both pinch force and pinch force steadiness (p < 0.05). The proposed assistive device has the potential to enhance elderly people’s quality of life through supporting a stronger and firmer pinch during the handling of everyday objects. Besides assisting elderly people, this research has applicational value towards the development of exoskeleton devices for other users who may require improved pinching abilities such as post-stroke or carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) patients. |
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