Implicit motor imagery in chronic complex hand injury patients and its relation to upper extremity function: A pilot study

Introduction Implicit motor imagery is the first step of graded motor imagery technique, which is known to be impaired in chronic pain conditions. However, there is a paucity of literature investigating implicit imagery in peripheral conditions like chronic complex hand injuries and its relation with upper extremity function. Method Thirty participants in the study group and 30 in the control group were included. Implicit imagery was assessed using hand laterality recognition task where participants identified 48 different hand images, as left- or right-hand images. Accuracy and response time were calculated and compared between the two groups. The Disabilities of Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire was used to assess the upper extremity functional level and correlated with implicit imagery as secondary objective. Results Hand injured patients had a 76.18% accuracy and 2.30 seconds/card response time. There was a statistically significant difference in accuracy (p < 0.0001) and response time (p = 0.0066) between study group and control group. Disability level assessed by DASH was 40.5 and had no correlation with accuracy (r = 0.004; 95% CI: 0.3663–0.3736) and response time (r = 0.099; 95% CI: 0.2804–0.4531). Conclusion Implicit imagery was impaired in chronic complex hand injured patients and it had no relation with upper extremity functional level.