Session Information
Session Time: None. Available on demand.
Disclosures: Tomoko B. Sugiyama, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest
Background and/or Objectives: To determine the feasibility and reliability of obtaining grip strength (GS) and anthropometric measures in the clinical setting among adults with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and examine associations between GS with demographic and anthropometric measures.
Design: Cross-sectional study
Setting: Outpatient PM&R Clinic at an academic medical center
Participants: Individuals ≥ 16 years of age with CP that were seen in clinic from May to December 2021. Of the 112 invited to participate, 107 completed all study tasks.
Interventions: not applicable
Main Outcome Measures: To assess the test-retest reliability of the 3 GS trials per hand, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were estimated using a 2-way mixed-effects model. Associations were examined between GS with the following variables: age, sex, Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS), Manual Ability Classification System (MACS), Communication Function Classification System (CFCS), body mass, waist and hip ratio.
Results: For all participants, the ICC (95% CI) was 0.95 (0.94-0.97) for the dominant hand and 0.97 (0.95-0.98) for the non-dominant hand, indicating good to excellent test-retest reliability and less variability across GS trials for the weaker hand. When stratified by MACS, the ICC point estimate ranged from 0.85 to 0.97 for MACS I/II and III-V respectively, indicating good to excellent test-retest reliability. There was no statistically significant difference in GS between GMFCS I/II vs III, but there were differences between MACS I/II vs III and CFCS I/II vs III (all p < 0.05). GS was correlated with lean body weight in all participants.There were no significant associations between GS with other measures.
Conclusions: Grip strength is a feasible clinical measure with good-to-excellent test-retest reliability that can be performed by adults with CP in an outpatient clinic setting. There is a relationship to lean body mass, more so than other measures. In this study, GS was more associated with MACS and CFCS than GMFCS.
Level of Evidence: Level III
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Sugiyama TB, Whitney D, Hurvitz EA, Schmidt M, Haapala H, Bowman A, Peterson M. Feasibility of Adding Grip Strength Measures to Body Composition Assessments in Individuals with Cerebral Palsy [abstract]. PM R. 2022; 14(S1)(suppl 1). https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/feasibility-of-adding-grip-strength-measures-to-body-composition-assessments-in-individuals-with-cerebral-palsy/. Accessed June 10, 2025.« Back to AAPM&R Annual Assembly 2022
PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/feasibility-of-adding-grip-strength-measures-to-body-composition-assessments-in-individuals-with-cerebral-palsy/