Engineered glove to evaluate hand disability in rheumatoid arthritis: A pilot-study

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Rheumatology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) significantly impacts hand function and quality of life.
• Objective assessment of hand motor impairment in RA is crucial for effective management.
• Existing methods may not fully capture the nuances of finger movement speed and coordination.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the reproducibility of the Hand Test System (HTS) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients.
• To correlate HTS-derived parameters with established clinical disease activity indices and patient-reported outcomes.
• To assess the utility of HTS in detecting motor impairments in RA patients, including those in clinical remission.

Main Methods:

• Fifty-five RA patients and 50 healthy controls (HCs) underwent HTS analysis using a sensorized glove.
• HTS measured touch duration (TD), inter-tapping interval (ITI), and movement rate (MR) during standardized finger movements.
• HTS parameters were correlated with Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), Hand Disability Index (HDI), Hand Grip Strength (HGS), and disease activity scores (DAS28-CRP, CDAI, SDAI).

Main Results:

• HTS demonstrated high reproducibility with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.93.
• RA patients exhibited significantly slower TD, ITI, and MR compared to HCs across all disease activity levels (P<0.001).
• All HTS parameters showed significant correlations with HAQ, HAQ-DI, HDI, HGS, DAS28-CRP, CDAI, and SDAI (P<0.05 to P<0.001).
• Significantly slower TD was observed in RA patients in clinical remission compared to HCs (P<0.001).

Conclusions:

• The Hand Test System (HTS) is a safe, rapid, and reproducible tool for evaluating rheumatoid hand functionality.
• HTS parameters provide objective measures of finger movement speed that correlate with disease activity, quality of life, and hand strength in RA.
• HTS can detect subtle motor impairments in RA patients, even during clinical remission, highlighting its potential for comprehensive patient assessment.