About

ABOUT US

University of Toronto professors Pat McKee and Anne Agur, founders of Anatomy Softwear International Inc., created the Anatomy Glove Learning System to help students that were struggling to understand the complexities of hand anatomy and function. The system is now being used around the world by clinicians, educators and students.

Watch The Anatomy Glove Learning System Being Used In Zimbabwe!

See Where In The Anatomy Glove Has Travelled To

Pat McKee, MSc(OT)
Co-founder and President, Anatomy Softwear International Inc.

Associate Professor Emeritus, Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
pat@anatomysoftwear.com

Pat has taught anatomy, hand therapy, biomechanics, orthotics (splinting), and occupational therapy for musculoskeletal conditions to students and therapists worldwide for more than 40 years.

In addition to many peer-reviewed articles, Pat co-authored the popular textbook “Orthotics in Rehabilitation: Splinting the Hand and Body”, as well as a key chapter of the book “Rehabilitation of the Hand and Upper Extremity”.

Pat is an internationally recognized expert in hand anatomy and hand therapy. The Canadian Society of Hand Therapists has presented her with a Life Membership Award, and she has earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Federation of Societies of Hand Therapists. She has been the Honored Hand Therapist at a Philadelphia Hand Meeting. Presentations as a keynote or guest speaker include those at the European Federation of Societies of Hand Therapy, the Council of Occupational Therapists for the European Countries, and the Brazilian Congress of Hand Surgery.

Pat also wrote and recorded "Look Beyond", Canada's Official Song for International Year of Disabled Persons, and has delighted many workshop attendees with her song “The Crazy Hand Anatomy Blues”.

Anne Agur, BSc(OT), MSc, PhD
Co-founder of Anatomy Softwear International Inc.

Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Anne began her career as an occupational therapist and has been a teacher and researcher in the Division of Anatomy, Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto since 1978.

She is the current co-editor of "Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy" and co-author of "Essential Clinical Anatomy" and “Clinically Oriented Anatomy”, three fundamental textbooks of anatomical education.

Our Story - From U of T to Around the World!

Pat McKee and Anne Agur have long collaborated to provide superior anatomy and biomechanics education to occupational therapy students at the University of Toronto. In the early 2000s, they noticed that their students were greatly challenged to understand the complexities of hand anatomy and function. Available time in the dissection lab was reducing, and two-dimensional figures, photos, and videos were not properly depicting the critical features. Drawing onto a latex examination glove gave students an improved, three-dimensional view, but the ink smeared and, if the bones were not precisely drawn by students from the outset, the images went awry.

The professors’ brilliant innovation was to give each student a virgin osseous glove, a form-fitting white cotton glove onto which had been printed - in exquisite accuracy and detail, front and back – all the bones of the human hand.

Here is Pat with an early prototype glove, made in her kitchen using iron-on transfers created by an anatomical artist.

Student feedback was enthusiastic from the start. This was fun! They were learning faster, and test results revealed they were retaining more detail than previous students.

To enhance the learning experience, videos were created, showing hand anatomy on dissected human specimens and how to draw various anatomical features onto the glove.

The videos were then made accessible outside the classroom, so that students could study hand anatomy on their own and view the videos as many times as they wished.

The prototype glove was presented at numerous conferences and workshops, but to effectively share this new learning technique with others required commercialization of the product. After many trials and tribulations, a suitably stretchy glove fabric was found. Conventional fine-tipped felt markers had to be compatible with the fabric. A process was developed so that the printed bones would align perfectly with hands of all shapes and sizes. A skilled medical videographer, Peter Reid from Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital, was engaged to create superlative videos of the anatomical prosections and each stage of the glove-drawing. The Anatomy Glove Learning System was born!

The AGLS is now used by thousands of individual learners world-wide: students and practitioners of anatomy, medicine, rehabilitation and massage therapy, in more than 80 educational programs and over 30 countries. The videos and written instructions are now available in English, French, German and Portuguese, with other translations currently under development.

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