The HandTutor™ is a novel system designed to evaluate and rehabilitate sensory, motor and cognitive hand impairments. The result of using the HandTutor™ is an improvement in hand function.

Hand Therapists including Occupational Therapists and Physical Therapists use the HandTutor™ system as a major tool in their rehabilitation program.

• Stroke
• Head injuries
• Parkinson's disease
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Cerebral Palsy
• Development Co-ordination Disorders
• Brachial Plexus injury
• Radial and Ulnar nerve injuries
• Post hand surgery rehabilitation e.g. Tendon transfer
• Forearm e.g. Elbow, Radius, Ulnar fractures and soft tissue injuries
• Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

The HandTutor™ system has been designed to cover age groups of 7 years of age and upwards.

Patients that have five percent of active movement relative to their passive movement can benefit from HandTutor™ treatment.

The HandTutor™ system is designed to be effective in both clinic and home care environments. The evaluation and treatment program is simple and intuitive to use. At the same time the treatment exercises are stimulating and challenging to keep the patient motivated.

The rehabilitation concept uses a combination of challenging active repetitive exercises together with motion feedback. The result is a significant improvement in hand function and the ability to perform everyday tasks.

Motion feedback is auditory and visual feedback information derived from the position of the hand. This motion feedback is quantitative and collected in real time. Motion feedback information has two roles. The first role is to allow the brain to understand the patient's current performance ability this is referred to as knowledge of performance. In addition motion feedback gives the brain input that allows the patient to understand what movement has to be performed in order to better perform the functional task. System provides feedback at the end of the exercise session that details the patients training result. This feedback is known as knowledge of results.

The HandTutor™ system uses position sensors on the glove that can detect fine movements of the fingers and the wrist. This movement is visually displayed to the patient and the therapist through a graphical interface.

EMG detects electrical muscle activity. This electrical activity can only be detected from single surface muscles. However this electrical activity can not be directly translated into information that shows whether the patient has achieved the desired and task required body movement. In contrast, motion feedback is derived only when the patient achieves movement and can thus be used as a reliable indication to whether the task is being properly performed.

The difficulty level of all the functional exercises in the HandTutor™ system can be tailored to the patients functional ability. This functional ability is determined by the patients motor, sensory and cognitive impairments.

The therapist can evaluate the following:

• Passive Range of Motion
• Active Range of Motion
• Velocity of finger movements
• Characterization of quality of the movement, such as tremor or smoothness
• Fine motor skills

The information is used to quantify patient performance, determine therapy goals and monitor patient progress.

The quantitative hand assessment is necessary to identify the degree of hand disability. Once the therapist knows the degree of patient hand disability a customized training rehabilitation program can be formulated. The result is better hand rehabilitation. In addition, the evaluation software allows the therapist to set a baseline for hand treatment that can be referred to as evidence in order to show improvement in rehabilitation therapy.

The HandTutor™ can generate reports and save detailing active and passive patient hand movements as well peed of finger and wrist movement. The reports are saved in the patient's file for easy access. These reports can be saved and printed during every step of the rehabilitation process in order to form a full documentation of the rehabilitation process.

Yes the HandTutor™ system has been proved effective in randomized controlled control clinical trials.