CAT (Comprehensive Assessment Tool) for Assessment of Functional Capacity of the Hand

Background: Hand function evaluations form an important element of extremity assessment, which helps to define the patient’s problem. Many functional hand evaluations described in the literature. However, cultural differences, expenses incurred, non-availability of Indian normative data makes clinical application of these tests difficult in Indian scenario. An attempt is made in the said study to construct an inexpensive, culture based, easy to administer, hand function test, which can be used for evaluation of the functioning of the upper extremity, for daily living tasks. Hence, the formulation of CAT (Comprehensive assessment tool) for evaluation of hand function. Objectives: To construct a simple, but comprehensive test for assessment of hand function. (CAT for hand function evaluation) 2. To check the reliability of the CAT test. Materials and methods: CAT test proforma was prepared based on available literature. The test that was constructed, consisted of 14 unilateral and 16 bilateral items. The study was conducted in the Occupational therapy department of a tertiary care hospital. Inclusion criteria were Normal, healthy individuals, between 20-60 years of age, with no known musculoskeletal upper extremity problems were recruited for the study. Total 30 people were evaluated on the newly constructed test and retested after a period of 3 weeks on the 30 test items after obtaining written informed consent. Standard method was employed while performance of the test. Scoring was done in time in seconds, and performance on CAT results noted. Results: Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from .798 to .976 suggesting excellent test-retest reliability for most test items. For bilateral test items, Cronbach’s alpha ranged from .573 to .941 suggesting from fair for some items and excellent test-retest reliability for most test items. Conclusion: The above findings suggest that the results of the CAT test are reproducible, hence CAT is a reliable test. Keywords: CAT test, Comprehensive test, Functional hand evaluation, Hand function