A Digital Box and Block Test for Hand Dexterity Measurement: Instrument Validation Study.
Eveline Prochaska, Elske Ammenwerth
PMID 37713251WHAT IT FOUND
A digital hand dexterity box scored lower than the standard Box and Block Test and did not track it closely in healthy adults.
It may help automate timing and counting, but it is not yet tested in patients.
Key findings
01In 29 healthy adults, the digital test averaged 76.86 blocks, compared with 81.83 blocks for the conventional test, and the two measures showed only a moderate correlation.
02Over 10 days, the digital test showed moderate test-retest agreement (ICC 0.72, 95% CI -0.23 to 0.93), but the confidence interval included 0, and the smallest detectable change was 8.5 blocks.
03The study included only healthy participants without hand dexterity limitations, so its results need confirmation in patients.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The participants were healthy occupational therapy students with no hand dexterity limitations, so the results do not show how the digital test performs in patients. Only 29 of the 32 recruited participants were analysed, and only 15 completed the second measurement, which weakens the test-retest and interrater reliability estimates. The sample was very homogeneous, mostly young right-handed women, and low variance can make reliability coefficients look lower. The digital test systematically scored lower than the conventional test, with a fixed bias, so scores are not directly interchangeable. The paper reports test-retest reliability as moderate but also states that the confidence interval included 0, indicating non-significance; the interrater reliability P value is .23 while the text describes it as statistically significant.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the digital Box and Block Test is interchangeable with the conventional test or ready for patient use. It was tested only in healthy adults, scored lower than the conventional test, and had reliability results that the paper describes as moderate but also reports confidence intervals that include 0.