Assessing the adjustability of grasping force using the iWakka in elderly individuals.
Tatsuya Kaneno, Akihiro Sato, Kazunori Akizuki and 3 others
PMID 29643609WHAT IT FOUND
When older adults repeated the same grasping force task on the iWakka, their first and second scores shifted by a consistent small amount, but the error did not grow with larger targets.
Key findings
01The analysis found a significant fixed bias between the first and second measurements for both hands.
02No significant proportional bias was found for either hand.
03The limits of agreement were -2.8 to 4.4 g for the dominant hand and -2.6 to 3.9 g for the non-dominant hand.
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 healthy community-dwelling adults aged 65 years and over, and the authors state that it is hard to generalize to people with disabilities. The sample was small and mostly right-handed, with 35 of the 36 subjects right-handed. The second measurement was taken 90 minutes after the first, and the authors suggest a practice effect may have remained. The iWakka gives visual feedback, which may improve adjustability during the task. A fixed bias was found, so first and second measurements are not interchangeable. No intervention outcomes were measured, and guidelines for interventions based on adjustability of grasping force are not established.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat a small change between two iWakka measurements as true change. The study found fixed bias between repeated measurements, and the authors state that only values beyond the limits of agreement indicate true change.