USA: The 9-Hole Peg Test could be a useful tool for assessing motor impairments in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), suggests a recent study. According to this study, the test maybe a good marker for the decline in hand function in this patient population.
The study findings were presented at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC), held October 25-28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida and subsequently published in the journal Neurology.
Not many studies have examine concurrent impairment of upper and lower extremity function in MS. The North American Registry for Care and Research in MS (NARCRMS) is a longitudinal registry studying the course of MS in the disease-modifying era and provided an opportunity to examine motor impairment in large numbers of patients.
Kottil Rammohan, University of Miami, Florida, and colleagues aimed to describe upper (9-hole peg test (9HPT)) and lower extremity (25-foot walk (25-FW)) function in participants at enrollment as a function of their disability (Extended disability status scale (EDSS))
For this purpose, the researchers recruited seven hundred and seventy-seven subjects as of October 16th, 2020. They collected various clinical metrics including motor performance for upper and lower extremities and EDSS scores.
EDSS and 25-FW times were available in 651, and 9-HPT in 647 subjects.
The study revealed the following findings:
Mean walking speed of 4.96 seconds was recorded in patients with EDSS of 0 and progressed to 18.09 seconds with aids by EDSS 6.5.
For the 9-HPT, patients with EDSS of 0 had a mean speed of 19.45 seconds in the dominant and 20.46 seconds in the non-dominant hand.
Hand function remained unimpaired until EDSS of 2.0 and progressively worsened with worsening disability, and at EDSS 6.5 speed had declined to 38.43 seconds for the dominant and 50.88 seconds for the non-dominant hand.
"Progressive decline of hand function at every EDSS increase, occurring concurrently with decline in lower extremity motor performance, suggests that the 9-HPT is a good marker of declining hand function and should be included in clinical monitoring of patients," concluded the authors.
Reference:
Motor Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis: Analysis from the North American Registry for Care and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (NARCRMS) (4731) Kottil Rammohan, David Li, June Halper, Sara McCurdy Murphy, Trent Wallace, Lisa Patton, Sarah Chrisant, Chao Zheng, Seema Khurana Neurology Apr 2021, 96 (15 Supplement) 4731.
DOI: https://n.neurology.org/content/96/15_Supplement/4731