Parametric Design of a Finger Rehabilitation Mechanism with Double Action and Two Degrees of Freedom
, Milton Carlos Elias-Espinosa *, Héctor Cervantes-Culebro and Aldo Elihu Flores-González
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
First of all, I think the manuscript entitled: “Parametric design of a finger rehabilitation mechanism with double action and two degrees of freedom” submitted for publication in the Applied Sciences Journal (MDPI.) has both scientific and clinical interest.
Overall recommendation: Accept in present form.
Comments and Suggestions for Authors: None
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Authors appreciate all reviewers’ comments and suggestions and are confident that corrections enlisted in the attached document fulfill their expectations.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper describes a new design for a finger reahabilitation tool. All the necessary phases of the process are described. About the novelty of the work, I have few concerns.
Major comment:
1) a strong article redrafting must be done, the concepts are badly exposed, the senteces too long and repetitive. As a scientific article, the reader must have an effective paper and find easly all the important steps of the work.
In this form, the article seems too redundant. Maybe an help from a native linguistic reviewer can be the turning point
Other comments:
1) I recommend a grammar and linguistic review. There are some too long senteces, repetitions. For example: Page 1 row 26 "shorter rehabilitation times" did the authors mean "time"?
2) the article is too long, I suggest to cut introduction section and summarized the main concepts of the sections
3) page 2 roes 85-100 can be improved and reduced, maybe omitted
4) page 3 rows 132-136: I would add these rows in the caption of the figures
5) for the sections where the authors describe the direct and inverse analysis: I suggest to remove most of the equations and make an "appendix". In the sections of the manuscript only the most important matter has to be reported
6) figures 3, 4 and 5 can be easly grouped into a single figure, as tables 2, 3 and 4 can form an unique table. In the same way, figure 8 and 9 can be grouped, as figure 11 and 12
7) the bulding materials of the prototype are missing
8) the feedbacks of the patients are missing
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
The authors appreciate all reviewers' comments and suggestions and are confident that the corrections enlisted in the attached document address all their concerns.
We await the reviewer's kind response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The article designs a double action and two degrees of freedom exoskeletal finger rehabilitation mechanism with virtual movement centers based on the theory of the anatomical properties of the human hand. The designed mechanism has a novel configuration, and the individual design of the machine can be achieved by modifying the parametric model. The essay describes the institutional design process clearly, and logically. The finger motion was verified by the infrared motion capture system and compared with the motion generated by the mechanism. It was concluded that the designed mechanism had a wider range of motion and more flexibility than previous similar mechanisms based on meeting the requirements of finger rehabilitation. The research carried out may provide more innovative ideas for the design of subsequent finger rehabilitation mechanisms. The research content has certain application value, but some details of the paper still need to be deliberated, and the details are as follows:
1. The first chapter of the article suggests that a mechanism using a virtual center has been proposed for the complex hand movements of the fingers for the Range Of Motion (ROM) during rehabilitation to be the closest to the natural ROM of a healthy human hand, and this mechanism is the main research method in this article. However, this mechanism is not described in detail in the text, and it is recommended that the characteristics of this mechanism be described in the context of existing studies and that the differences with existing studies be explained.
2. The infrared motion capture calibration for the finger bone in Chapter 2 was on the skin, and there is the soft tissue between the skin surface and the finger bone, which varies from location to location, and the thickness of the soft tissue in the same places varies with finger movement, which can have an impact on the experimental results. You have produced similar results in your analysis, and if so, how this issue was resolved and whether it will have an impact on the institution's research.
3. The parameter units of the mechanism design are based on the distal phalanx as the reference unit, and the reference unit is also converted according to the soft tissue of the fingertip to determine the final phalanx length. Will the dimensional error of the final mechanism design be magnified by this calculation, and if so, please briefly explain.
4. in Figure 1, Ri (i = 1, 2, ......) does not correspond to the position in equations (1-4), please make the figures consistent.
5. θi is used in the text to illustrate the angles of Ri, but the position of the origin of the coordinates is not punctuated. the location of the angle referred to by θi is not specified and is not labeled in Figures 1 and 2.
6. The vector cycle equations listed in Equations (9-10) for ⃗R4 = ⃗R1 + ⃗R6 (9) and ⃗R7 = ⃗R1 + ⃗R2 + ⃗R8 (10) are not closed and are both missing the vector ⃗R5.
7. The article concludes with a comparative description of existing mechanisms for finger rehabilitation, mainly in terms of each joint mechanism's rotation angle and degrees of freedom, illustrating the advantages offered by two degrees of freedom. The advantages of the mechanism compared to other existing mechanisms are suggested.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
The authors appreciate all reviewers' comments and suggestions and are confident that the corrections enlisted in the attached document address all their concerns.
We await the reviewer's kind response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors addessed all the reviewer comments and suggestions.
