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Hand function measures for burn patients: a literature review.
Szu-Yen Lin1, Jui-Kun Chang, Po-Chih Chen
1School of Occupational Therapy, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Burns : Journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries
|September 19, 2012
Summary
Evaluating hand function in burn rehabilitation is crucial. This review examines common measures, highlighting their limitations and suggesting the need for burn-specific tools to improve patient outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Rehabilitation Medicine
- Burn Care
- Functional Assessment
Background:
- Hand function is a primary goal in burn rehabilitation.
- Assessing hand function accurately is vital for patient recovery and quality of life.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review existing hand function measures for burn patients.
- To summarize psychometric properties and clinical utility of these measures.
- To provide guidelines for clinical practice and research in burn rehabilitation.
Main Methods:
- Conducted a comprehensive online database search (PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsychInfo).
- Identified and reviewed 23 relevant articles from 117 initial findings.
- Classified eight measurement instruments into three categories: component, performance, and patient-reported outcome measures.
Main Results:
- Traditional component measures may not reflect overall hand function.
- Performance measures lack validation in burn populations and correlate poorly with patient outcomes.
- Patient-reported outcome measures require more rigorous validation for burn patients.
Conclusions:
- Current hand function measures have limitations for burn patients.
- Clinicians must carefully select measures based on intervention goals.
- Development of burn-specific hand function measures is recommended for future research.
