# A Case Study on the Design and Implementation of a Platform for Hand Rehabilitation
## 8 Conclusions  
Studying literature, we found many interesting tools in rehabilitation [3; 35; 50; 56]. However, none of them support different hardware alternatives, connecting hardware of diverse manufacturers. Our platform is the first attempt to support the community and provide a platform to have a uniform software that is loosely coupled with the underlying software and hardware. We live in an era where advances in electronics, robotics, IT, and additive manufacturing are enormous. With our platform, we enable the independent layers, so the hardware can be switched, or even supported, by additive manufacturing, which, in our opinion, might change the future of health care. The other novelty is an independent rehabilitation exercise definition, which was shown in the example of hand rehabilitation. This enables easier, customized exercise definition for an individual user, not dependent on the software front-end.  
We know there are limitations in the current work (number of supported rehabilitation devices, etc.). Therefore, we envision many interesting research directions. Regarding code generation, we want to investigate how language composition techniques [65] can assist us in the code generation process for different types of rehabilitation devices. To test our rehabilitation platform, we intend to extend it with assistive technology and robotic rehabilitation with hand exoskeleton technology. Another priority direction in our research is support for the evaluation of patient hand movements. We plan to extract neural information from the hand's surface, and use it for further rehabilitation processes [66] and define customized exercises for the individual. We already have some results from a preliminary study with a hand glove. However, we are still seeking alternatives and studying motion assessment obtained from hand flexion and extension, joints and tissue stretch to use this information back in the rehabilitation process. On the other hand, RehabHand needs to be evaluated from different viewpoints. We want to check whether engaging with a rehabilitation aid and robot-assisted rehabilitation result in increased engagement, confidence, and motivation levels of patients in a rehabilitation process. In the future, we would like to spread our technology to other physical disabilities. For instance, we would like to test children with cerebral palsy [25] and other neuromotor disabilities in more frequent and intensive therapy by doing personalized exercises with rehabilitation aids.  
Conceptualization, T.K., M.M. and M.C.; Investigation, T.K., M.M., M.H. and M.C.; Software, T.K. and M.H.; Writing--original draft, T.K.; Writing--review & editing, Z.L., M.M., M.H. and M.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
The Slovenian Research Agency supported this work under Grants P2-0041 and BI-CN/18-20-007. This work was also supported by the Changshu Science and Technology Development Programme under Grant CR201719.  
Not applicable.  
RehabHand source code is available at: [[https://github.com/tomazkosar/RehabHand](https://github.com/tomazkosar/RehabHand)]([https://github.com/tomazkosar/RehabHand](https://github.com/tomazkosar/RehabHand)). Additional information is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.