Hand function is vital for everyday activities from eating to writing. Yet, many individuals, especially those with impairments from conditions like stroke, face challenges in performing these tasks. Medical professionals often prescribe therapeutic exercises for patients to practice at home. However, sustaining motivation for these exercises is a significant struggle. Most patients are reported to commit only 15 minutes daily to these exercises, despite the general recommendation of 30 minutes per day. This often leads to the patientsâ not following the therapy effectively or not following the therapy at all. Consequently, hand function deterioration becomes inevitable, leading to lower motivation and lack of engagement with the exercises. This fact overshadows the effectiveness of current approaches, all of which assume and expect perfect motivation at the patient's side.
Do you always follow your physical therapistâs adviceâor not?
To solve this emerging problem, we took a different approach than the traditional rehabilitation approaches that require motivation and time to perform the rehabilitation exercises. We take and transform daily objects that are used during activities of daily living (ADLâs) into smart rehabilitation tools that facilitate seamless hand rehabilitation at home âwe call these tools the âFreehabilitation Toolkitâ.Â
By incorporating rehabilitation exercises, such as training grasping movements and force, into common ADLs (i.e., brushing teeth, drinking from a cup, etc), patients engage with hand therapy without allocating time for it, or they are training their hands during performing the daily tasks. With this approach, task-specific exercises seamlessly become part of regular daily routines and training time naturally increases throughout the day. The tools in the toolkit monitor the progression of the stroke survivors on the exercises and make the insights available to the patient and clinician.
