UC Berkeley Team Seeking Paid Participants for Study

A UC Berkeley research team is seeking individuals with cervical injuries to participate in an upcoming study.

The study will consist of dexterous manipulation tasks and participants will be asked to wear assistive devices on your forearms and hands in order to handle test objects. You will perform a variety of manual tasks relevant to activities of daily living in your home environment, like kitchen tasks.

By participating in this research, you will help us evaluate the effectiveness of novel wearable assistive devices for the upper limbs. We aim to use these findings to develop new wearable technologies that better assist people with spinal cord injury. To accomplish these goals, we need to sample participants with a wide variety of hand function, both people with and without spinal cord injury.

The experiment will take place in your home and should run for 4-5 hours with the investigators present (breaks as needed). Participants will be compensated with a $144-180 ($36/hour) Amazon gift card for their time.

We are looking for participants who have: a spinal cord injury at the C5-C7 cervical level that affects the hands and have been living stably with this condition at least six months.

To be eligible, you must also:

- Be 18 years of age or older

- Have not suffered a bone fracture in your upper body in the last 6 months

- Have not suffered from tennis elbow or of any form of repetitive hand/wrist injury

- Have not undergone surgery that would impact motion in your upper body in the last 6 months

- Not be pregnant or suspect you may be pregnant

Participation in this research is completely voluntary. You have the right to decline to participate or to withdraw at any point in this study without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.

If you are interested in participating, have any questions, or would like more information, please reply to this email or call:

Drew McPherson at drewmcpherson25@berkeley.edu, or

Hannah Stuart at 510-643-9786 (office), hstuart@berkeley.edu