Knitted Robot Fabric Provides Hand Edema Patients With Soothing Massages

Hand edema is a build-up of fluids under one’s hand that causes it to swell and inflame. Some triggers include a host of diseases, staying in one position for too long, certain drug medications—including antidepressants and steroids—or even just intaking too much salt.
 
One of the best ways to eliminate puffiness is to have a trained professional perform manual edema massage (MEM), although not everyone has access to such medical care. With this knitted robot, however, you might not need a trained individual to relieve you of the swelling.
 
The robot was designed by Cindy (Hsin-Liu) Kao from the College of Human Ecology and a director at Hybrid Body Lab, who worked with physicians from Weill Cornell Medicine and therapists from the Cayuga Medical Center (CMC). The idea for ‘KnitDema’ came about from another product called ‘KintDermis’, a wearable device that can pinch, twist, and exert pressure on the skin for different purposes. Feedback from KnitDermis showed that many people were interested in having a personal wearable massage device.

 
KnitDema is made from a robotic textile in the form of stretch yarn that has pockets to hold the actuators that control it. It also contains thread-like memory alloy springs woven into the fabric and can be used over a single finger. Each spring is activated by a small circuit board that can contract and release the muscle.
 
The transition temperature for the spring contraction reached 113°F, which participants in the study noted was not too uncomfortable. KnitDema is meant to be a quiet and easy solution for outpatients who might contract edema during recovery. The device eliminates to need for them to head to a therapist to resolve the issue, and instead can perform their MEM at home. In fact, according to the research, the glove can achieve more evenly dispersed compression compared to having someone else perform it.
 
 
 
[via Technology.org and The Engineer, screenshot via Hybrid Body Lab]