Hand strength

Hand strength measurements are of interest to study pathology of the hand that involves loss of muscle strength. Examples of these pathologies are carpal tunnel syndrome, nerve injury, tendon injuries of the hand, and neuromuscular disorders. Hand strength testing is frequently used for clinical decision-making and outcome evaluation in evidence-based medicine. It is used to diagnose diseases, to evaluate and compare treatments, to document progression of muscle strength, and to provide feedback during the rehabilitation process. In addition, strength testing is often used in areas such as sports medicine and ergonomics. In general, hand strength measurements can be divided into manual muscle testing and dynamometry. Hand strength measurements are of interest to study pathology of the hand that involves loss of muscle strength. Examples of these pathologies are carpal tunnel syndrome, nerve injury, tendon injuries of the hand, and neuromuscular disorders. Hand strength testing is frequently used for clinical decision-making and outcome evaluation in evidence-based medicine. It is used to diagnose diseases, to evaluate and compare treatments, to document progression of muscle strength, and to provide feedback during the rehabilitation process. In addition, strength testing is often used in areas such as sports medicine and ergonomics. In general, hand strength measurements can be divided into manual muscle testing and dynamometry. In clinical practice, hand muscles are most often evaluated using manual muscle strength testing using the Medical Research Council (MRC) Scale. In this scale, muscle strength is graded on a scale from 0 to 5. For evaluating the strength of the intrinsic hand muscles, a small modification to the standard MRC grading has been made so that grade 3 indicates ‘full active range of motion’ as compared to ‘movement against gravity’: