Application and adaptation of the Virtual Eggs Test for assessing hand dexterity in subjects with stroke: a pilot study.
Michele Piazzini, Tommaso Ciapetti, Marco Baccini and 6 others
PMID 40475794WHAT IT FOUND
Nine stroke survivors completed the hand dexterity test with their affected arm.
It was feasible and mostly comfortable, but timing was unreliable and the most fragile test objects were hard to detect as broken.
Key findings
01Nine people with stroke completed the Virtual Eggs Test once with their paretic arm, and most rated it favorably.
02The grip-force threshold varied among participants from 1.70 to 4.88 N/N, with mean 3.22 ± 1.26 N/N, and total test time ranged from 11 to 33 minutes, with mean 20.1 ± 6.5 minutes.
03Evaluators found the test feasible, but phase durations were not reported because the analysis showed inconsistent results and artifacts, often from uncertain grasping or releasing of the objects.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study included only nine participants, so it cannot establish how the test performs in most stroke patients. It was a pilot feasibility study, not a validation study; reliability, validity, and normative data were not tested. The supplied text lists inclusion and exclusion headings but does not give the criteria, so eligibility cannot be checked. The full test protocol and adaptations are described in supplementary material, which is not available here. All participants performed the test once with the paretic arm only, so repeatability and less affected side performance were not assessed. Phase timing was unreliable and not reported, partly because uncertain grasping or releasing produced artifacts. The most fragile Virtual Eggs were hard to detect when broken, limiting use of the lowest fragility range. The threshold was calculated from only 15 trials and the least four reversals, which the authors note may be inaccurate for some participants. The Discussion reports an average stroke threshold of 3.7, while the Results report mean 3.22, so the threshold value is not internally consistent.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The study was funded by the Italian Ministry of Research under the Fit4MedRob grant (# PNC0000007).
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the Virtual Eggs Test as a validated clinical assessment or as evidence that it improves hand function after stroke. This was a nine-person pilot with no reliability or validity testing, unreliable phase timing, and difficulty detecting breakage of the most fragile objects.