A wearable soft robot for movement assistance on eyelid closure

Abstract

We present a facial wearable robot to support eyelid movement for patients with hemifacial paralysis. People with facial paralysis are not able to blink, which leads to dry eyes and could cause permanent damage to the cornea. To address this issue, we developed a robotic system to support eyelid movement on the paralyzed side based on voluntary eyelid movement on the healthy side. The robot has a novel mechanism for supporting eyelid movement and is made from soft material, which we call the eyelid gating mechanism (ELGM). We defined the requirements for eyelid manipulation. Then, we introduced design rules for the ELGM based on this definition, and conducted a deformation analysis. As a result, we could control deformation so that it is tailored to eyelid movement with simple rotational input at two hinged ends. This system provides appropriate support for eyelid movement in a non-invasive and gentle manner, based on voluntary eyelid movement on the healthy side. In this paper, we present a performance evaluation of the developed ELGM and the wearable facial robot. We confirm that ELGM could aid eyelid closure in 8 out of 10 patients. Further, we find that the time lag between eyelid closure detection and completion was 236.9 ± 19.4 ms.