Typical external loads that require to be resisted by a non-dominant prosthetic hand

Abstract

The design of a prosthetic hand is a challenging task which requires knowledge of the forces that such a prosthesis will need to apply/sustain during activities of daily living. The distribution and magnitude of these forces depend not only on the activity that needs to be carried out but also on the kinematic hand structure (KHS) of the prosthetic hand. Thus, one cannot simply design a prosthetic hand based on the forces applied by commercial hands or by the human hand. For this reason, information on the external loads that may be present when carrying out a daily task is required, so that it can then be applied to a prosthetic hand with any KHS. However, literature on the loads present during different daily activities is limited. Thus, the objective of this paper was to carry out a series of experiments to determine the external loads present in a number of activities. The contact forces that a prosthetic hand with a simple KHS, in the role of the non-dominant hand, would need to apply/sustain in order to withstand such external loads were then determined.