Follow-up report on the electrically driven hand splint.

Abstract

Since the electrically driven hand splint was introduced in 1972, significant improvements have been made in the design and fabrication of the unit which have made it safer, easier to apply, and readily adjustable to the range of motion of a given finger. Over the last 12 months the results of this form of passive exercise were studied by comparing the gain in total active and passive motion in stiff fingers exercised over a 1 month period with similar stiff fingers treated by conventional manual passive joint exercise. There was a significant improvement in the mean gain of both total active and passive motion in those fingers treated with the electrically driven splint.