Data from: Elasticity improves handgrip performance and user experience during visuomotor control

Passive rehabilitation devices, providing motivation and feedback potentially offer an automated and low-cost therapy method, and can be used as simple human-machine interfaces. Here we ask whether there is any advantage for a hand-training device to be elastic, as opposed to rigid, in term of performance and preference. To address this question we have developed a highly sensitive, portable digital handgrip promoting independent and repetitive rehabilitation of grasp function based around a novel elastic force and position sensing structure. A usability study was performed on 66 healthy subjects to assess the effect of elastic vs. rigid handgrip control during various visuomotor tracking tasks. The results indicate that, both for tasks relying on feedforward or feedback control, novice users perform significantly better with the elastic handgrip, compared to the rigid equivalent (11% relative improvement, 9-14% mean range; p<0.01). Furthermore, there was a threefold increase in the number of subjects who preferred elastic compared with rigid handgrip interaction. Our results suggest that device compliance is an important design consideration for grip training devices.