Strokes are a type of brain injury that affects over 750,000 people annually. Approximately half of the patients diagnosed with a stroke suffer chronic damage of the upper extremity function. Rehabilitation helps the patient to keep abilities and recover some of the lost ones, to become more independent. Hand rehabilitation exercises aim at assisting patients so they can regain finger mobility and strength. An actuated hand orthosis is a potential therapy tool for distal upper extremity weakness, since it can offer a promising approach to improve lost motor behaviors in stroke patients. Nowadays, hand movement assisting devices are developed for research applications, and even for commercial purposes. However, most of them are expensive, heavy and bulky or do not offer control over their whole operation. This work proposes and develops a new actuation system that can contribute to the construction of an easy to operate, portable, low cost and fully controlled hand movement assisting device. Several advances towards the creation of an actuated hand orthosis were achieved, leading to the creation of an electromechanical system capable of assisting finger movement along their full range of motion, while keeping low weight in the distal upper limb. The system is controlled by a computer software with a graphic user interface that allows the users to configure the system s parameters to their specific needs. The control software also allows the communication with a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) in order to synchronize the system s movements with the user intentions, improving the recovery rates.