Desrosiers J, Bravo G, Hébert R, Dutil E
Centre de recherche en gérontologie et gériatrie, Hôpital D'Youville de Sherbrooke, Québec.
Am J Occup Ther. 1995 Jul-Aug;49(7):637-44. doi: 10.5014/ajot.49.7.637.
Grip strength is an important prerequisite for good performance of the upper limb, hence it is important to evaluate it correctly. However, one of the main difficulties in evaluating the grip strength of elderly patients is the absence of valid norms. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop normative data for maximum grip strength of persons aged 60 years and older.
The grip strength of 360 subjects aged 60 years and older, randomly recruited by age and gender strata, was evaluated with the Jamar dynamometer and the Martin vigorimeter according to the protocol of the American Society of Hand Therapists.
Grip strength diminishes curvilinearly with age, and men are consistently stronger than women. The data are presented by the means, standard deviations, and range, and as predictive equations obtained by regression analysis. In addition to age and gender, hand circumference and body height proved to be the best indicators of grip strength for this population of elderly subjects.
The random recruitment of subjects, the high participation rate in the study, and the comparability of the subjects who agreed to participate and those who refused give this study the high external validity that is essential to any norm study. The predictive equations will help occupational therapists to better estimate the expected grip strength of elderly patients than they could if using only age and gender.
握力是上肢良好功能的重要前提，因此正确评估握力很重要。然而，评估老年患者握力的主要困难之一是缺乏有效的标准。因此，本研究的目的是制定60岁及以上人群最大握力的标准数据。
按照美国手治疗师协会的方案，使用Jamar握力计和Martin测力计对360名60岁及以上的受试者进行握力评估，这些受试者按年龄和性别分层随机招募。
握力随年龄呈曲线下降，男性始终比女性更强。数据以均值、标准差和范围呈现，并作为通过回归分析获得的预测方程。除年龄和性别外，手周长和身高被证明是该老年受试者群体握力的最佳指标。
受试者的随机招募、研究中的高参与率以及同意参与和拒绝参与的受试者的可比性，赋予了本研究高外部效度，这对任何标准研究都是至关重要的。与仅使用年龄和性别相比，预测方程将有助于职业治疗师更好地估计老年患者的预期握力。
