Every year there are 48,000 strokes in Australia. Every 11 minutes, an Australian suffers a stroke. These figures are expected to increase to 74,000 strokes a year by 2017. One in twenty of these are people aged 45 years or younger. The result of Australia’s aging population will be an increased need for the prevention of stroke and the treatment and rehabilitation of sufferers.

Depending on the severity and location of the stroke in the brain, brain cell loss can affect physical and mental capacity to varying degrees. The severity of the stroke can determine for instance what level of upper limb functionality remains. Even if a patient has partial hand movement, they often lose the ability to control the amount of force applied with each grip. Thus, an important part of stroke rehabilitation is providing feedback and training to the patient on their grip and pinch strength. Because current hand Dynamometers are unwieldy and can be somewhat expensive, we have set out to design a more ergonomic and economic alternative that is also more challenging and interactive for the user. A major aim of this training programme is to make the path to full or partial recovery a more insightful and enjoyable one for the patient.

This project covers Engineering topics including sensors, signal processing, software and hardware design. It is being undertaken through collaboration with Professor Mary Galea, an internationally renowned researcher in neurosciences and clinical physiotherapy from the Department of Physiotherapy.

There are also many opportunities to expand our design to cover a wider variety of bodily functions and for the design to perform assisted training in addition to resistive training.

Dr Lachlan Andrew, Troy Wilson, Juan Abinoja, Duncan Johnston, Charles Kemp, Emmanuel Koumoundouros