Prediction of fabric tension and pressure decay for the development of pressure therapy gloves

Pressure garments are commonly used in the treatment of hypertrophic and deformed scars. Pressure monitoring is crucial for effective pressure therapy. A new method is proposed to predict the amount of pressure acting on skin induced by pressure therapy gloves on the basis of hand curvatures extracted from three-dimensional hand images. The non-linear tensile properties of seven types of fabrics with various structures and their tension decay in relation to prolonged usage and reduction factors are examined. By taking into consideration the fabric elongation when the gloves are worn, a total of 36 pressure gloves are tailor-made by using three reduction factors. Based on the fabric tensile behavior, the corresponding glove pressure is predicted by the local strain, fabric tension per unit length and curvature of hand surface. No statistical difference at significance level of 0.05 is found between the predicted glove pressures and the measured values. In the measuring points on the dorsum of the hand, except the metacarpal site, the root mean square error ranges from 0.79 to 1.18 kPa. The investigation confirms that all pressure gloves lose tension and, therefore, pressure delivering ability upon repeated uses. It is also revealed that the pressure measuring positions and their corresponding curvature and geometry changes caused by hand movements and postures are closely associated with interfacial pressure delivered by the glove.