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Background: Incorporating an occupation-based assessment along with or in place of an assessment of body functions and structures is not performed routinely in hand therapy practice., Purpose: (a) Explore correlations between body functions, activities and participation (A&P), and quality of life (QOL); (b) assess the extent to which personal factors and body functions contribute to variations in A&P and QOL; (c) compare the QOL of individuals with and without hand impairment (HI)., Study Design: Cross-sectional., Methods: Seventy-seven patients (Mean age=43.70 SD=17.56; 47 males and 30 females) with chronic and acute hand impairment were recruited from two hand clinics and matched with healthy participants. Assessments were administered to participants in their first visit to the hand clinic. QOL was measured with the World Health Organization QOL questionnaire; A&P with the Disabilities of the Arm Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire; pain with the Patient-Rated Wrist/Hand Evaluation; hand function with The Functional Dexterity Test, Jamar Dynamometer and Pinch Gauge., Results: Significant correlations were found between QOL and A&P, dexterity, and pain, as well as between A&P and hand strength and pain. Personal factors, hand function, and pain collectively explained 28.9% of QOL variance and 61.4% of A&P variance. Pain emerged as the sole significant contributor to QOL variance, while both hand function and pain significantly influenced A&P variance. Comparisons between the study group and controls highlighted significant differences in QOL domains, with the HI group reporting lower perceived QOL in physical, social, and environmental domains., Conclusion: The significance of adopting a comprehensive approach in HI intervention was highlighted. A complex interplay of factors across different levels of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework imply that clinicians should avoid fixating exclusively on isolated factors or specific domains., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript. The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. The study was approved by Barzilai Medical Center (0140-16-BRZ)., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: OT-ParentShip intervention addresses the needs of autistic adolescents and the physical and emotional burden associated with parental caregiving., Aim: This article describes the qualitative findings of a mixed-method, single-group, pre-test-post-test pilot study to determine whether this intervention has adequate potential for further, large-scale testing., Method: The qualitative study sought to understand 14 parents' (N = 4 couples, N = 6 mothers) experiences in the intervention, examine their satisfaction, and receive their suggestions for improvement, using a grounded approach, with the aim of conceptualising a theoretical understanding of the data gathered., Results: A total of five key themes and 14 sub-themes describe parents' experiences. The key themes that were identified were parent-therapist relationship, parent-adolescent relationship, reframing, benefit for family, and parental resilience. Emerging themes shed light on the therapeutic components and change mechanisms of the intervention., Conclusion: Self-determination theory was found to be an adequate theoretical framework to map these components and help in understanding their contribution to treatment outcomes. OT-Parentship directly enforces parents' basic psychological needs, who, in turn, support their adolescent child's need for relatedness, competence, and autonomy. An occupational therapy intervention that satisfies these basic needs has the potential to lead to therapeutic alliance and internalisation of goals, thus increasing therapy engagement and outcomes., (© 2023 Occupational Therapy Australia.)

Background: Grip strength is frequently used in research and clinical work and is commonly compared to normative data in clinical settings. To enable accurate interpretation of grip strength values, normative reference values should be close to the demographic, occupational, cultural and geographic characteristics of the individual tested., Objective: Investigate the effects of gender, age, work-group and hand dominance on grip strength for the Israeli population, and to compare the grip strength to two normative studies from the United States., Methods: A cross sectional study. The grip strength of 637 healthy adults was measured using a Jamar dynamometer. The effects for age, gender, hand dominance, and work strain were investigated. Israeli sample results were compared to US norms., Results: Within the Israeli sample, a significant age effect was found for both men and women. This effect was most apparent among the 70+ age groups, in which grip strength was weaker than all the other groups. Males were significantly stronger than females, in both hands, and the dominant hand was significantly stronger, regardless of gender. Results also demonstrated a medium to large effect for type of work on grip strength portraying high manual strain workers to have stronger grip strength. Overall, the grip strength in the Israeli sample was weaker than both US samples., Conclusion: Clinicians should be cautious when comparing grip strength to published norms from a different culture/geographical region. The amount of manual strain invested in various occupational roles should be considered in the assessment and intervention process.