Page 1 de 9 Manual Grip Force of the Adult Population – A Possible Protocol RESEARCH AND NETWORKS IN HEALTH RESEARCH ARTICLE Manual Grip Force of the Adult Population and its Relation to Health Conditions – A Possible Protocol A Força de Preensão Manual da População Adulta e a sua Relação com Condições de Saúde – Um Possível Protocolo Elisabete Roldão 1,2,3 , Augusto Gil Pascoal 3 1 Hospital das Forças Armadas Polo de Lisboa, 1649-020 Lisboa, Portugal 2 Escola Superior de Saúde, Instituto Politécnico de Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal 3 Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade de Lisboa, 1495-687 Cruz Quebrada, Portugal Abstract Understanding how humans grasp objects, knowing their implications and limitations associated with each grasp and their patterns of common use, is important in medicine, rehabilitation, product design, among many other fields. The grasp hand strength provides valuable information about the individual's functionality and helps to implement and monitor strategies to preserve or regain overall muscle strength. The main goal of this research is to update the hand grasp assessment in the clinical context by widening its spectrum to other hand grasp configurations, often used in daily activities. Based on the new Grasp Taxonomy, a project financed by the European Commission, we will implement three studies, to update assessment of hand strength. Initially, we propose to analyse the grasp categories of the new Grasp Taxonomy, considering the characteristics of each one, and verify if they are possible to assess with the G200 Dynamometer and P200 Pinchmeter of the Biometrics ® E-Link. We will then assess the strength of the grasps configurations identified as possible to be assessed, in healthy participants, the control group. In a second phase, we will do the same process, in the study group, with hand pathology. The participations are recruited at a Hospital and at a Rehabilitation Clinic, in the region of Lisbon, Portugal, constituting a convenience sample. Adults, between 20 and 60 years old, Portuguese and without hand pathology, form the control group. The study group will have the same characteristics and musculoskeletal pathology of the hand or peripheral neurological, without other associated, degenerative or neurological central pathologies. Being pregnant is an exclusion criterion for both groups. In the end, we will implement a correlational study to verify the possibility of assessing hand strength in these different grasp’s configurations and the relation between grasp strength, pathologies, and tasks of daily activities. The data collecting process is still on going. We identified 14 hand grips that can be assessed with the G200 Dynamometer and the P200 Pinchmeter of the Biometrics ® E-Link. Of these, nine can be assessed with dynamometry, being global grips, and five with Pinchmeter, being tweezers. Keywords: Grasp Taxonomy, Grip Strength, Daily Activities, Hand Assessment Resumo A forma como as pessoas agarram os objetos, as suas implicações na saúde e na realização das atividades e tarefas do dia-a-dia e as limitações de cada preensão são importantes para a medicina, reabilitação, design de produtos, de entre muitas outras áreas. A força de preensão fornece informações importantes sobre a funcionalidade do indivíduo e ajuda na monitorização e implementação de estratégias de manutenção ou recuperação da força muscular global. O objetivo principal deste estudo é alargar a avaliação da força de preensão da mão, ampliando seu espectro para outras configurações de preensão, usadas em atividades do dia-a-dia, relacionando-as com a sua utilização funcional. Tendo como base a nova Taxonomia das Preensões, resultante de um projeto financiado pela Comissão Europeia, implementaremos três estudos. Inicialmente propomos analisar as caracteristicas das preensões da nova taxonomia e verificar se é possível serem avaliadas com o Dinamômetro G200 e o Pinchmetro P200 do Biometrics ® E-Link. Seguidamente Citation: Roldão, E. & Pascoal, A.G. (2018). A Força de Preensão Manual da População Adulta e a sua Relação com Condições de Saúde – Um Possível Protocolo. Res Net Health 4, 1-9. Received: 11 th July 2017 Accepted: 25 th July 2018 Published: 30 th December 2018 Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Corresponding Author: Augusto Gil Pascoal gpascoal@fmh.ulisboa.pt brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by IC-online