Comparison between estimates of hand volume and hand strengths with sex and age with and without anthropometric data in healthy working people.

Edema and hand strength measurements are useful for the recovery assessment of patients with a hand lesion. This work determined and compared estimates of hand volume, grip strengths (measured with a Jamar and a Collins dynamometer), and pinch strength (with a Jamar pinch gauge) in terms of sex and age with or without anthropometric indices in healthy working people. The sample included 100 subjects from within the staffs of two rehabilitation centres. For both grip strengths, multiple linear regression models including body height, weight, and arm muscle area were very good (multiple correlation coefficient R of about 0.84) and clearly better than those obtained with sex and age only. For pinch strength, the best estimate was obtained with sex and arm muscle area (R of 0.76); for hand volume, the model with sex, body height, and weight provided the best result (R of 0.93). These findings suggested that anthropometric indices easy to measure must be taken into account to estimate hand volume and hand strengths.