An Intelligent Evaluation of Wrist Strength for the Elderly People and Its Clinical Application

The muscle strength of involved wrist muscles may be gradually reduced as aging, and impair their operating skills and even life quality of the elderly. This study has proposed an evaluation system of wrist muscle strength to grip or twist. This system consists of a torque meter (FUTEK TDF400) and three plugs/sockets for simulation of common grip or twist in daily living. This study has completed to evaluate the wrist muscle strength of men and women. In addition to the effects of age and gender, this study analyzes the influence of applied force and its plug/socket diameter on the wrist muscle strength. Simultaneously, this study measured the effect of proper forearm supporter to alleviate pain and improve the wrist and grip strength in the subjects with tennis elbow. And quantitative surface EMG was used to analyze the relationship between different forearm muscles involved. In order to achieve the user-friendly effect, this system intergraded with Cloud service and Bluetooth technology, and developed a portable and intelligent evaluation system of wrist muscle strength. It can help medical personnel to assess and analysis of real-time data. The traditional training of wrist muscle is using grip or grasp a soft tennis ball. In this study a portable grip ball training system is developed. It consists of a pressure sensor and LabVIEW program. It's expected to reduce the risk of injury of the elderly in their daily lives.