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Importance: Occupational therapy practitioners need modern tools for the assessment of maximal grip strength in clinical and remote settings. Objective: To establish the (1) interrater reliability and (2) precision of the GripAble among three raters with different expertise in occupational therapy when testing healthy participants, and to (3) evaluate the relative reliabilities of different approaches to estimating grip strength (i.e. one trial, mean of two trials, and the mean of three trials). Design: Measurement study. Setting: Minnesota Translational Musculoskeletal and Occupational Performance Research Lab, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Participants: Thirty volunteers, age ≥18 yr, without any hand problems. Outcomes and Measures: Using GripAble, three occupational therapy raters with varied experience measured the maximal grip strength of the dominant and nondominant hands of all participants. Using the mean of three trials when testing grip strength with GripAble adds precision. Results: GripAble has excellent interrater reliability (i.e. intraclass correlation coefficient >.75) and acceptable precision (minimal detectable change < 15%) among healthy adults. Conclusions and Relevance: GripAble allows occupational therapy practitioners with different experiences to assess grip strength in healthy hands quickly, precisely, and with excellent reliability. Additional research is needed on its psychometrics in clinical populations and capacities in remote monitoring and exergaming. Plain-Language Summary: The results of this study show that grip strength, an important biomarker and commonly assessed construct in occupational therapy, can be evaluated reliably, precisely, and rapidly with GripAble. The use of GripAble by occupational therapy practitioners in clinical settings may help to build an infrastructure for remote measurements and exergaming interventions in the future. GripAble, a novel assessment and treatment device, allows occupational therapy practitioners with different experiences to assess grip strength in healthy hands quickly, precisely, and with excellent reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study Design A cross-sectional clinical measurement study. Introduction Measuring intrinsic hand muscle strength helps evaluate hand function or therapeutic outcomes. However, there are no established normative values in adolescents and young adults between 13 and 20 years of age. Purpose of the Study To measure hand intrinsic muscle strength and identify associated factors that may influence such in adolescents and young adults through use of the Rotterdam intrinsic hand myometer. Methods A total of 131 participants (male: 63; female: 68) between 13 and 20 years of age completed the strength measurements of abductor pollicis brevis, first dorsal interosseus (FDI), deep head of FDI and lumbrical of second digit, flexor pollicis brevis (FPB), and abductor digiti minimi. Two trials of the measurements of each muscle were averaged for analyses. Self-reported demographic data were used to examine the influences of age, sex, and body mass index (BMI) on intrinsic hand muscle strength. Results Normative values of intrinsic hand muscle strength were presented by age groups (13, 14, 15-16, 17-18, 19-20 year olds) for each sex category (male, female). A main effect of sex, but not age, on all the muscles on both the dominant (FPB: P = .02, others: P < .001) and non-dominant (FDI: P = .005, FPB: P = .01, others: P < .001) sides was found. A significant effect of BMI was found on dominant ( P = .009) and non-dominant abductor pollicis brevis ( P = .002). In addition, FDI ( P = .005) and FPB ( P = .002) were stronger on the dominant side than the non-dominant side. Discussion Intrinsic hand muscle strength may be influenced by different factors including sex, BMI, and hand dominance. A larger sample is needed to rigorously investigate the influence of age on intrinsic strength in male and female adolescents and young adults. Conclusion The results provide reference values and suggest factors to be considered when evaluating hand function and therapeutic outcomes in both clinical and research settings. Further study is recommended. Level of Evidence VI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]