Therapy gloves for patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a review

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease that causes pain, joint stiffness and swelling leading to impaired hand function and difficulty with daily activities. Wearing therapy gloves has been recommended by occupational therapists as one of the alternative treatment methods for rheumatoid arthritis. This study aims to review the available literature on the effects of wearing therapy gloves on patients' hand function and symptoms as well as to discuss the attributes of gloves that might influence the glove performance. An electronic databases search of MEDLINE, Physiotherapy Evidence Database, Occupational Therapy Systematic Evaluation of Evidence, Wiley Online Library, ScienceDirect and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trial was performed. Eight articles met the inclusion criteria, and covered seven clinical trials and one case study. Seven outcome measures were identified from the included studies and were then classified into two categories: hand function and hand symptoms. The hand symptoms such as pain, stiffness and swelling improve substantially when the therapy gloves are used. However, marginal or no improvement in hand function (with the exception of grip strength) linked to the use of therapy gloves is being reported. Further research is needed to quantify the effectiveness of therapy gloves, especially in improvement of hand function and in patients' interest in wearing therapy gloves. Furthermore, future studies should include parameters which might influence therapy gloves' performance, such as duration of trials, interface pressure generated by the gloves on the underlying skin and tissue, glove fit and construction, as well as thermophysiological comfort.