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Updated: Apr 15, 2026

Utility of Dissociated Intrinsic Hand Muscle Atrophy in the Diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Published on: March 4, 2014
AIIMS test: a simple test to look for presence of palmaris longus
M V Machhindra1, B Garg, V Tiwari
1Department of Orthopaedics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi, 110029, India, morey.vivek123@gmail.com.
Purpose:
Palmaris longus has an invaluable role in reconstructive surgeries of hand and is the most common source of tendon grafts in tendon transfer surgeries. Various clinical tests are available to check for the presence of the tendon but are often difficult to use due to their complex nature. We suggest a rather simple test, which we have found very useful in our practice.
Methods:
In this cross-sectional study, we compared our proposed test with the most commonly used Standard test (Schaeffer's test) to know about its sensitivity in a cohort of randomly selected 200 patients.
Results:
We found our test to be more sensitive than the Standard test. The average time duration from instructions to elicitation of the test was also found less. No individual asked to repeat the instructions for the proposed test.
Conclusions:
Our proposed test to evaluate the presence of palmaris longus tendon is very simple and easy-to-understand manoeuvre with good sensitivity. It would be extremely useful in the preoperative planning in most of the reconstructive surgeries, should the palmaris longus tendon be harvested.
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