A video game based hand grip system for measuring muscle force in children.
Orla Gotthelf, DeWayne Townsend, William Durfee
PMID 34246310WHAT IT FOUND
A video game hand grip matched published grip norms in 14 of 20 age groups, and all but one of 13 patients with muscle disease finished.
It is not yet a tested clinical measure for therapy changes.
Key findings
01Compared with published normative grip data, the device matched average maximum grip strength in 14 of 20 age groups.
02In healthy participants, average maximum grip strength was 100% at the start, 80.2% mid-game and 76.2% at the end.
03All but one of 13 participants with muscle disease completed the game, but the group was too small to draw conclusions about strength or fatigue.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The main validation study used fair visitors without muscle disease, not the children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy the device is intended for. The device was not compared directly with a standard Jamar dynamometer in the same participants because the game protocol was fatiguing. Many enrolled records were not analyzed, including 39 that saturated the dynamometer and 27 with missing data. The patient sub study included only 13 participants and was not powered to assess strength, fatigue, or clinical change. The dynamometer was still too heavy for some people with low arm and grip strength. The usefulness of tracking error as a diagnostic measure is unknown until larger data are collected from children with muscular dystrophy.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this device improves care or detects disease change. It was validated mainly in healthy fair visitors, and the 13 patients with muscle disease were too few to test strength or fatigue effects.