A Pilot Study on Fabric-Based Pneumatic Soft Gloves for Assisting Patients With Severe Brachial Plexus Injury

OBJECTIVE: Robotic gloves show promise in hand assistance due to their wearability and home-based potential, yet empirical research remains limited. This pilot study presents a fabric-based pneumatic soft glove, aiming to identify its potential and challenges in clinical practice by evaluating its effectiveness in assisting patients with severe brachial plexus injury (BPI). METHODS: The glove integrates a thumb abduction actuator and four bidirectional fabric-based pneumatic actuators (FPAs) with asymmetric chambers for high output force. Sixteen healthy volunteers and five individuals with BPI, all of whom lacked active hand and wrist movements, were recruited. Participants performed object grasping across 25 cm. The healthy group performed seven tasks using objects weighing up to 2 kg, with muscle activities recorded for analysis. The BPI group further performed tasks with eight objects from the action research arm test (ARAT) and twelve objects for activities of daily living (ADLs), encompassing various sizes, weights, and geometries. RESULTS: In the healthy group, sEMG showed a decrease in 89.3% of trials, with 56.0% of these decreases being significant (p$< $0.01). For BPI group, the range of motion (ROM) improved, ranging from 28.5 $\pm$ 7.9$^{\circ }$ to 63.1 $\pm$ 5.1$^{\circ }$ (thumb) and 10.3 $\pm$ 17.5$^{\circ }$ to 122.5 $\pm$ 19.0$^{\circ }$ (index finger). With a zero baseline for all tasks, their completion rates were 6.8 $\pm$ 0.8 out of 8 for ARAT tasks and 10.0 $\pm$ 1.7 out of 12 for ADLs. CONCLUSION: The fabric-based pneumatic soft glove significantly enhanced the hand function of patients with severe BPI, demonstrating its potential for hand assistance.