—Hand impairment is common following stroke and
is often resistant to traditional therapy methods. Successful
interventions have stressed the importance of repeated practice
to facilitate rehabilitation. Thus, we have developed a servocontrolled
glove to assist extension of individual digits to
promote practice of grasp-and-release movements with the
hand. This glove, the PneuGlove, permits free movement of the
arm throughout its workspace. A novel immersive virtual
reality environment was created for training movement in
conjunction with the device. Seven stroke suvrvivors with
chronic hand impairment participated in 18 training sessions
with the PneuGlove over 6 weeks. Overall, subjects displayed a
significant 6-point improvement in the upper extremity score
on the Fugl-Meyer assessment and this increase was
maintained at the evaluation held one month after conclusion
of all training (p < 0.01). The majority of this gain came from
an increase in the hand/wrist score (3.8-point increase, p <
0.01). Thus, the system shows promise for rehabilitative
training of hand movements after stroke.