Study design: This study has a descriptive-comparative, cross-sectional design.
Introduction: Sensorimotor (SM) impairments have been observed after common wrist and hand injuries such as distal radius fractures. However, there is a lack of research regarding SM impairments in patients with carpometacarpal (CMC) osteoarthritis (OA).
Purpose of the study: This study sought to quantify proprioception deficits in older adults with CMC OA as compared with healthy adults using the joint position sense (JPS) test.
Methods: The active JPS test was used to measure proprioception function in 29 thumbs with CMC OA and their 29 matched-control healthy counterparts. For comparison, participants with unilateral CMC OA were matched against themselves, whereas those with lateral CMC OA were age matched with a healthy participant. Data analysis was performed to compute the mean error of JPS; an unpaired t test was used to compare the mean error of the non-CMC OA group with the healthy control group.
Results: The mean positional error measured from subjects with CMC OA was 9.53° compared with 1.32° for the age-matched healthy subjects. The effect size for the difference in means was D = 1.96.
Conclusions: Thumb SM impairments were found to be greater in subjects with CMC OA than in their healthy counterparts when using the JPS test to assess proprioception.
Keywords: Carpometacarpal; Joint position sense; Osteoarthritis; Proprioception; Sensorimotor.
Published by Elsevier Inc.