Moroncini Gianluca, Brunzini Agnese, Papetti Alessandra, Filippini Emanuele, Maurizi Valentina, Cesaretti Giulia, Gesuita Rosaria, Gabrielli Armando, Germani Michele
Dipartimento di Scienze Cliniche e Molecolari, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy.
Clinica Medica, Azienda Ospedali Riuniti, Ancona, Italy.
J Scleroderma Relat Disord. 2021 Jun;6(2):170-177. doi: 10.1177/2397198320965382. Epub 2020 Oct 19.
Impaired hand function is a major contributor to overall disability and reduced health-related quality of life in scleroderma patients. A relevant issue concerns interaction of scleroderma subjects with touchscreen interfaces. This study aims at investigating this problem assessing scleroderma patients' performance with a novel, aptly designed, touchscreen application in order to identify critical items of touchscreen technology which may impair or facilitate the use by scleroderma subjects. Eighty scleroderma patients performed this novel application including three games, each of which tested a different gesture: tapping, dragging/dropping, and pinching-to-zoom. Eighty healthy subjects without hand impairments were recruited as controls. Scleroderma patients performed worse than healthy users in each game, and statistically significant negatively impacting items were identified. In the second phase of the study, the 10 worst touchscreen performers within the scleroderma cohort were recruited for a physio-rehabilitation trial based on the daily use at home of a modified version of the software application downloaded into the personal devices of patients. The results of this study allow introduction of guidelines to design accessible touchscreen interfaces for subjects with scleroderma and suggest that touchscreen technology may be included in self-administered physio-rehabilitation programs for scleroderma hand.
手部功能受损是硬皮病患者整体残疾和健康相关生活质量下降的主要因素。一个相关问题涉及硬皮病患者与触摸屏界面的交互。本研究旨在通过评估硬皮病患者使用一款新颖、设计恰当的触摸屏应用程序的表现来调查这一问题，以确定触摸屏技术中可能会妨碍或有助于硬皮病患者使用的关键项目。80名硬皮病患者使用了这款新颖的应用程序，其中包括三款游戏，每款游戏测试一种不同的手势：点击、拖放和捏合缩放。招募了80名无手部损伤的健康受试者作为对照。硬皮病患者在每款游戏中的表现均不如健康用户，并且确定了具有统计学显著负面影响的项目。在研究的第二阶段，从硬皮病队列中挑选出10名触摸屏操作表现最差的患者，基于下载到患者个人设备中的软件应用程序的改良版在家中日常使用情况进行物理康复试验。本研究结果有助于引入为硬皮病患者设计无障碍触摸屏界面的指导方针，并表明触摸屏技术可纳入硬皮病手部自我管理的物理康复计划。
