Electromyography analysis for pre-clinical trials of hand rehabilitation tasks using design of experiments

This experimental analysis aims to integrate biosignals, that is, electromyography (EMG) signals, with hand rehabilitation device. Primarily, it focuses on capturing the EMG signals for five prehensile tasks five-pulp pinch, lateral pinch, pulp-to-pulp pinch, tripod grip and power grip. The testing conducted on twenty-five subjects has provided insights on EMG signal and gripping/pinch force trends. Furthermore, the usage of fractional and factorial analysis has determined that age is a predominant factor attributing to the difference in EMG signals and gripping/pinch force. Therefore, this leads to the derivation of the pre-clinical grading system for hand rehabilitation for spinal cord injury (SCI) and post-stroke patients.