HandHero
Empowering Rural Burn Patients To Rebuild Hand Function And Rejoin Their Communities.
11 million burn injuries occur globally each year, disproportionately affecting poor rural women and children in the developing world. Severe burn injuries affecting the hands are extremely common due to open kitchen fire accidents. If improperly treated, aggressive scar tissue will contract the hand into an unusable fist, destroying the ability of these patients to lead independent lives. Proper treatment involves reconstructive surgery followed by long-term physical therapy, which is inadequate or non-existent in many of these settings. The HandHero is an affordable & accessible hand orthotic device to promote healing. HandHero works by applying progressive pressure to the fingers of a contracted hand to gently stretch the tendons & muscles back to a functional state. It features a user-friendly rachet mechanism that the patient can use to progressively straighten their hand until full recovery with minimal professional intervention. The HandHero thus, prevents lifelong disability.