Efficacy Of Telerehabilitation In Improving Grip Strength

Handgrip strength is essential to perform day-to-day tasks. People lose handgrip strength due to aging, diseases, and other conditions. According to neuroplasticity principles, grip strength can be improved using repetitive tasks and exercises. People often are not motivated enough to adhere to meaningless repeated movements to improve grip strength exercises. This study describes developing an innovative smartphone-based telerehabilitation system that includes an innovatively designed grip strength device (eGripper) and a phone application to play games. This telerehabilitation system encourages patients to play a game while improving grip strength.eGripper was a repurposed dynamometer that sends grip strength data to an android phone. The raw grip strength data stream was used as a control variable to play games. In this study, the grippyBird game was designed, where customizations can be done from a remote therapist dashboard. Thirty-four participants participated in validity and reliability experiments to measure this device against the “gold” standard Jamar dynamometer. The test results substantiate that eGripper has acceptable concurrent validity and inter-instrumental reliability. A randomized clinical trial with an experimental and control group measured efficacy and compliance. Findings from the clinical trial showed significant improvements in grip strength and compliance between groups. A formative and summative usability testing was performed. Formative usability used focus groups and informal interviews with a few therapists and patients during the design stage. Four experimental participants did a summative usability experiment with two surveys. An eGripper telerehabilitation system to resolve the issues of HEP compliance was developed for this study. The use of a game instead of repetitive exercises motivated participants to be compliant in performing their HEP more regularly. Future research is needed to continue developing both the eGripper and associated games to help patients with poor hand strength improve their ability to grip.