Tactile display on the remaining hand for unilateral hand amputees

Abstract

Human rely profoundly on tactile feedback from fingertips to interact with the environment, whereas most hand prostheses used in clinics provide no tactile feedback. In this study we demonstrate the feasibility to use a tactile display glove that can be worn by a unilateral hand amputee on the remaining healthy hand to display tactile feedback from a hand prosthesis. The main benefit is that users could easily distinguish the feedback for each finger, even without training. The claimed advantage is supported by preliminary tests with healthy subjects. This approach may lead to the development of effective and affordable tactile display devices that provide tactile feedback for individual fingertip of hand prostheses.

Keywords

• hand prosthesis
• tactile display
• unilateral amputation