A novel tablet-based application for assessment of manual dexterity and its components: a reliability and validity study in healthy subjects.
Ayah Rabah, Quentin Le Boterff, Loïc Carment and 8 others
PMID 35331273WHAT IT FOUND
In healthy adults, a 20-minute tablet app gave repeatable scores for finger recognition, rhythm, sequences and line tracking, but not for unwanted finger movements.
It detected age-related slowing, yet did not match Box and Block or Moberg pick-up.
Key findings
01Most tablet task measures were repeatable, but measures of unwanted finger movements were not.
02Finger recognition reaction times and line-tracking duration increased with age, while rhythm and sequence tasks did not show an age relation.
03Tablet reaction times correlated with a dedicated finger force device, but tablet scores did not correlate well with Box and Block or Moberg pick-up tests.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
All participants were healthy adults, so the app's usefulness in stroke, neurological, rheumatic or psychiatric patients is not established. The reliability sample was 34 participants and the validity sample was 54, which is small for testing many variables. Test-retest intervals varied from 2 hours to 19 days, which may add variability. Some tasks showed learning or performance changes between sessions, especially speed and accuracy measures. The tablet tasks did not measure force, and some tasks had ceiling or floor effects in healthy adults. The tablet scores did not correlate with Box and Block or Moberg pick-up tests, so their relation to common clinical hand function scores is unclear.
Declared interests
No conflicts-of-interest or funding declaration appears in the supplied article text. The publication types note non-U.S. government research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this tablet app is ready to replace clinical hand tests. It was tested only in healthy adults, and its scores did not correlate with the Box and Block test or the Moberg pick-up test.