A Wearable Soft Robotic Glove for Rehabilitation of Paralyzed Hand

Thesis (M.Eng., Mechanical Engineering)--Prince of Songkla University, 201

Low cost soft robotic gloves for at-home rehabilitation and daily living activities

Stroke is one of the major reasons which affect the human hand functionality and lead to disability. Different repetitive exercises are used to regain the hand functionality which involves robotic exoskeleton. Soft pneumatic actuators are one of the good alternatives to rigid and fixed exoskeletons for rehabilitation. This paper presents soft robotic gloves fabricated with two different lowcost silicones which can be used in daily living activities and rehabilitation purpose. Soft robotic gloves are light weight and compact. These robotic gloves utilize the pneumatic pressure to flex and extend the human hand. Soft robotic gloves were tested on a healthy object for grasping and rehabilitation ability. Results showed that robotic glove was able to grasping and do the Kapandji test. This work presents an important step toward low cost efficient soft robotic devices for rehabilitation of stroke patients

Validating a Phenomenological Mathematical Model for Public Health and Safety Interventions Influencing the Evolutionary Stages of Recent Outbreak for Long-Term and Short-Term Domains in Pakistan

During the outbreak of an epidemic, it becomes significantly essential to monitor the effects of containment measures and forecast the outbreak, including the epidemic peak. Many countries have either implemented strict lockdown to counter the spread of coronavirus disease or taken necessary preventive measures across the world to reduce the outbreak of this epidemic war. Several epidemic models have been presented across the world to examine the effects of public health-related strategies on mitigating the spread of current infectious disease, yet no reputable model has been presented for Pakistan as well as other South-Asian developing countries as per the authors’ knowledge. In this research, an actual coronavirus prediction in Pakistan is presented, which may guide the decision-makers as to how this pandemic has spread across the country and how it can be controlled. Furthermore, in the absence of targeted medicines, the analysis helps to develop a precise plan for the eradication of the outbreak by adopting the calculated steps at the right time. The mathematical phenomenological models have been adopted in this study to predict, project, and simulate the overall affected cases reflected due to the recent outbreak in Pakistan. These models predict the expected growth, and the estimated results are almost well matched with the real cases. Through the calibration of parameters and analyzing the current situation, forecast for the appearance of new cases in Pakistan is reported till the end of this year. The constant level of number of patients and time to reach specific levels are also reported through the simulations. The drastic conditions are also discussed which may occur if all the preventive restraints are removed. This research quantitatively describes the significant characteristics of the spread of corona cases. It acknowledges and provides an understanding of a short-term and long-term transmission of coronavirus outbreak in the country as three evolutionary phases. Therefore, this research provides a pathway to cope with the emerging threat of a severe outbreak in developing and nondeveloping countries