Arthritic hand response to pressure gradient gloves.

Five women with osteoarthritis and 10 with rheumatoid arthritis and finger joint involvement wore a pressure gradient glove, a control glove, or no glove in a randomly assigned sequence. All were outpatients. Each patient wore the assigned glove nightly for 1 week, after which a battery of subjective and objective data, including number of tender joints, ring size, grip strength, palmar temperature, and hand function were obtained. In all, 105 separate examinaion sessions were completed over 7 visits, with each hand serving as its own control in the experimental design. The palmar skin temperature was elevated in both patient groups when either a pressure gradient or control glove was worn. In patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the only significant difference was that the pressure gradient glove reduced ring size when compared to the control glove or no glove. No differences were detected in the patients with osteoarthritis.