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At least 343 records · Page 19Linked to original sources

Hearing asymmetry among left-handed and right-handed persons in a random population.

The possible effect of handedness on hearing threshold asymmetry was analysed in a large random population representing a normal population. The left ear was on an average slightly but significantly poorer than the right ear at high frequencies, especially at 4 kHz, while at low frequencies the right ear was on average poorer than the left ear. A matched control group of the right-handed subjects was formed for 211 left-handed subjects. Among the left-handed subjects the average ear asymmetry resembled the ear asymmetry of the whole population, the right-handed subpopulation, and of the matched control group. In conclusion, it seems that handedness cannot be responsible for the average inferiority of hearing in the left ear at 4-kHz or for the average slight superiority of the left ear at 0.125-0.5 kHz. However, this analysis does not rule out possible minor effects of handedness on ear asymmetry.

Adolescent↗

[Alexia without agraphia due to the lesion in the right occipital lobe in a right-handed man. Detection of hemispheric lateralization of handedness and language in a right-handed patient].

INTRODUCTION AND CLINICAL CASE: A 65 year-old man, right-handed, without any family history of left handiness, suddenly developed a left homonymous hemianopia and incapacity for reading. Neurological and neuropsychological examinations showed the presence of a profound alexia with preservation of writing to dictation and spontaneously. He was unable to read what he had written. He could spell the words letter by letter but he was unable to read the complete word. MRI showed an extensive infarct in the territory of the right posterior cerebral artery. The infarct extended anteriously to the right thalamus and to the medial temporal fifth or fusiform gyrus. The splenius was spared. Brain SPECT disclosed the area of the infarct and an extensive area of decreased cerebral perfusion over the right parietal and temporal areas. CONCLUSION: Alexia without agraphia has been reported in right-handed patients with left occipital lesions and in right occipital regions in left-handed patients but rarely if ever in right occipital lesions in right-handed patients.

Aged↗

[My fingers itch, but my hands are bound. An exploratory psychosomatic study of patients with dyshidrosis of the hands (cheiropompholyx)].

The purpose of a pilot study with 20 patients, suffering from dyshidrotic exzema of the hands, was to investigate the relevance of a psychosomatic approach for its etiology and therapy. A set of psychological and allergological tests revealed the following results. - 10 patients suffered from a contact allergy (epicutaneous test), 6 of them were allergic to nickel - the patients were less aggressive and more permissive (Freiburger Personality Inventory; FPI) as compared to a standard population. They reported more somatic complaints (HHM) as healthy subjects. - the results of a semistructured interview support the hypothesis, that the dyshidrotic exzema often has an expressive function: the patients present their dependency conflict in a symbolic manner by means of their hands. They try to take their life in their own hands; autonomous actions however are hampered by their own dependency needs. The development of the dyshidrotic symptoms corresponds to the autonomy, which has been achieved with regard to the individual conflict of ambivalence. According to our findings the contact with nickel is not predominant, neither causative nor triggering, factor. Following the psychosomatic concept of Engel and Schmale, the authors discuss the pathogenesis of dyshidrosis with the meaning of a complication of (pregenital) conversion, with the hands as the part affected.

Adolescent↗

Comparison of scholastic performances of left handed and right handed students.

An attempt was made to compare the scholastic performance among left and right handed students. Both academic and extra curricular areas were studied among 3608 students from 6th to 12th class, from 10 schools in a rural subdivision of north east Rajasthan. General incidence of left handedness was 8.6% among students, higher in females (12.4%) as compared to males (8.1%). Right handed students performed better in aggregate as well as in individual academic areas (p < 0.05). Left handed students were extreme performers as far as sports and games area was concerned, while right handed students tended to be average performers. Overall handedness affected both the academic and extra-curricular activities except behavior and discipline area (p > 0.05).

Achievement↗

Hand contamination before and after different hand hygiene techniques: a randomized clinical trial.

The efficacy of alcohol-based handrubs (ABH) for hand hygiene (HH) compared with handwashing (HW) remains to be established in the clinical setting. Factors associated with severe hand contamination before HH techniques were medical ward, physician and not wearing gloves. Forty-three healthcare workers [HCW, 26 nurses (N), nine nurse assistants (NA) and eight physicians (P)] each performed six HH techniques in random order, immediately after a patient care activity: HW with non-antiseptic soap for 10 (US10) and 30 (US30) s; HW with antiseptic (polyvidone iodine- or chlorhexidine-based) soap for 10 (AS10), 30 (AS30) or 60 (AS60) s; and ABH (Sterillium, Bode Chemie, Germany). The fingertips of the dominant hand were pressed on to agar for culture before and after each HH technique. Five hundred and sixteen specimens were obtained. Log(10)-transformed bacterial count reductions after HH were 0.74, 0.51, 1.13, 1.14, 1.21 and 1.40 for US10, US30, AS10, AS30, AS60 and ABH, respectively; both AS and ABH were significantly better than US. Qualitative assessment showed that 11 of the 256 pre-HH specimens (4.3%) had pathogenic bacteria, and that two of these 11 remained positive after HH (US in both instances).

Adult↗

Effects of the Ebbinghaus illusion on different behaviors: one- and two-handed grasping; one- and two-handed manual estimation; metric and comparative judgment.

Many studies have suggested that visually-guided action is largely immune to the effects of several pictorial illusions that strongly influence perceptual judgments. The judgments in these experiments, however, have usually involved comparisons of multiple elements within a display, whereas the visually-guided actions have typically involved a pincer grip directed to only one display element. The three experiments presented here assess the influence of this confound on the perception versus action illusion dissociation. In general, the studies suggest (a) that the confound affects perceptual judgment but not grasping or manual estimation, and (b) that difficult visuomotor tasks are more affected by the Ebbinghaus illusion than easier tasks. In Experiment 1, participants reached for or made judgments about plastic disks placed in the center of the Ebbinghaus illusion display. Some participants reached for or made judgments about only the disk on the right, whereas others reached for or judged both disks simultaneously. A large effect of the illusion was found for grasping and comparative judgment, but not for manual estimation or metric judgment. In Experiment 2, the disks were elevated slightly to make gripping the targets easier, and the effects of the illusion on grasping were greatly reduced. For Experiment 3, participants performed the manual estimation task while the hands were placed in view, on the surface of the table, and the effects of the illusion were significantly increased. Taken together, the experiments indicate that task difficulty and hand visibility affect whether a task will be influenced by pictorial illusions or not. One- and two-handed grasping seem to be affected approximately equally.

Behavior↗

Men and women holding hands: whose hand is uppermost?

This study explored the issue of whether status and power differences are expressed in the way men and women hold hands. It was hypothesized that men's hands would be upper in heterosexual handholding couples significantly more often than women's. Also, to explore the possibility that height differences of handholding partners might affect handholding position, all handholding couples observed in this study were classified as couples with men and women of equal height or couples where either the men or women were taller. A total of 1,006 handholing couples were observed, and men's hands were significantly more likely to be the upper one in couples when men were taller than women and in couples where men and women were of equal height, suggesting that, while height does matter, it is less important for this handholding pattern than sex differences.

Body Height↗

Development of a hand sensitivity test for the hypersensitive hand.

An instrument was developed to measure the effects of a desensitization program on hand hypersensitivity. It was standardized with 40 "normal" subjects ages 20 to 40 of both sexes and two ethnic groups. Results showed reliability coefficients ranging from .74 to .82 for the three modalities employed in the test. Analyses of variance of agreement between test and retest scores revealed no significant differences in reliability due to hand used, sex, or ethnicity. It was concluded that the instrument could be used as both a clinical and research tool for the measurement of hand sensitivity.

Adult↗

Radial club hand. A continuing study of sixty-eight patients with one hundred and seventeen club hands.

Based on a review of the embryology, genetics, and anatomy of radial club hand, it is suggested that damage to the apical ectoderm on the anterior aspect of a developing limb bud leads to the deformity. Study of the families of thirty-five children with radial club hand suggested that the condition is not genetically patterned. The anatomical findings and associated congenital abnormalities in the cases known to be related to thalidomide and in those in which thalidomide was not a factor were similar except that the incidence of other skeletal deficiencies was higher in the thalidomide group. Thirty-one of the 117 radial club-hand deformities (in sixty-eight patients) under my personal supervision were treated by centralization of the carpus on the ulna with satisfactory improvement of the deformity. In three cases wrist deformity recurred mainly in a volar direction, apparently the result of muscle imbalance. No significant impairment of ulnar growth occurred and straightening of the wrist did not affect function adversely. Pollicization of the index finger was done on twenty-eight occasions. Although problems developed in the early cases, these can be avoided using the methods described and the operation can improve both function and appearance. A scheme of management is recommended.

Adolescent↗

From head orientation to hand control: evidence of both neck and vestibular involvement in hand drawing.

This research investigated the effect of head to trunk relation in a sensorimotor drawing task. In the first experiment, seated participants were asked to reproduce with eyes closed geometric shapes (square or diamond) with the tip of their right index finger in the frontoparallel plane. Their head was either aligned with the trunk or tilted 25 degrees towards the left or right shoulder. Results showed that drawings were subjected to an overall rotation of a few degrees in the opposite direction to the tilt. In two subsequent experiments, the respective contribution of both otoliths and neck receptors to this head tilt effect was investigated. In Experiment 2, seated participants kept their head straight but were subjected to 2.5 mA vestibular galvanic stimulation (GVS). Results indicated that GVS induced a small but significant deviation of the drawings towards the anode. Finally, in Experiment 3, subjects performed the drawing task either seated upright (seated condition) or lying on their back (supine condition). Unlike in the seated condition, tilting the head towards the shoulders in a supine posture does not modulate afferents from the otolith stimulation and therefore mainly stimulates neck receptors. Head tilt induced rotations of hand-drawn reproductions in both seated and supine conditions, suggesting a significant contribution of neck afferents in the control of hand motion in space in the absence of vision. Overall the data provided evidence for a strong head-hand linkage during kinaesthetically guided drawing movements.

Adult↗

Hand digit control in children: age-related changes in hand digit force interactions during maximum flexion and extension force production tasks.

We studied the finger interactions during maximum voluntary force (MVF) production in flexion and extension in children and adults. The goal of this study was to investigate the age-related changes and flexion-extension differences of MVF and finger interaction indices, such as finger inter-dependency (force enslaving (FE): unintended finger forces produced by non-instructed fingers during force production of an instructed finger), force sharing (FS; percent contributions of individual finger forces to the total force at four-finger MVF), and force deficit (FD; force difference between single-finger MVF and the force of the same finger at four-finger MVF). Twenty-five right-handed children of 6-10 years of age and 25 adults of 20-24 years of age participated as subjects in this study (five subjects at each age). During the experiments, the subjects had their forearms secured in armrests. The subjects inserted the distal phalanges of the right hand into C-shaped aluminum thimbles affixed to small force sensors with 200 of flexion about the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint. The subjects were instructed to produce their maximum isometric force with a single finger or all four fingers in flexion or extension. In order to examine the effects of muscle-force relationship on MVF and other digit interaction indices, six subjects were randomly selected from the group of 25 adult subjects and asked to perform the same experimental protocol described above. However, the MCP joint was at 800 of flexion. The results from the 20' of MCP joint flexion showed that (1) MVF increased and finger inter-dependency decreased with children's age, (2) the increasing and decreasing absolute slopes (N/year) from regression analysis were steeper in flexion than extension while the relative slopes (%/year) with respect to adults' maximum finger forces were higher in extension than flexion, (3) the larger MVF, FE, and FD were found in flexion than in extension, (4) the finger FS was very similar in children and adults, (5) the FS pattern of individual fingers was different for flexion and extension, and (6) the differences between flexion and extension found at 20 degrees MCP joint conditions were also valid at 80 degrees MCP joint conditions. We conclude that (a) the finger strength and independency increase from 6 to 10 years of age, and the increasing trends are more evident in flexion than in extension as indexed by the absolute slopes, (b) the finger strength and finger independency is greater in flexion than in extension, and (c) the sharing pattern in children appears to develop before 6 years of age or it is an inherent property of the hand neuromusculoskletal system. One noteworthy observation, which requires further investigation, was that FE was slightly smaller in the 80 degrees condition than in the 20 degrees condition for flexion, but larger for extension for all subjects. This may be interpreted as a greater FE when flexor or extensor muscles are stretched.

Adult↗

Analysis of vasospasm in hand arteries by in vitro pharmacology, hand angiography and finger plethysmography.

1. The distribution of sympathetic nerves in hand arteries and veins from 18 normal subjects was studied by microscopy according to the Falck-Hillarp histofluorescence method for the cellular visualization of cathecholamines and by quantitative analysis of noradrenaline with a radioenzymatic method. Segments of hand arteries and veins were tested in vitro for the vasomotor effect of sympathomimetic agonists. 2. Fluorescence microscopy revealed a plexus of noradrenaline-containing nerve fibres surrounding both arteries and veins. The concentration of noradrenaline in the walls were 4.5-4.7 ng/mg protein. The relative agonist potency was characteristic for alpha-receptors. Phentolamine produced parallel shift of the dose-response curves both for arteries and veins. 3. Finger plethysmography with local cold provocation down to 10 degrees C was performed in the patients with traumatic vasospastic disease before and after inhibition of the sympathetic nervous system by body warming and orally administered alcohol. Four patients had undisturbed circulation, as revealed by the ratio between the systolic blood pressure in the arm and in the finger in conjunction with cold provocation tests. 13 patients had vasospasm of varying degrees, and 3 patients suffered from organic stenosis. 4. Hand angiography was performed before and after local cold provocation. The patients with organic stenosis did not show vasodilatation after 4-6 mg phentolamine injection. Patients with true vasospasm responded, in addition, with efficient vasodilatation 15 min after reserpine injection, which also abolished the cold-induced vasospasm.

Angiography↗

Arm anomalies and bone marrow failure may go hand in hand.

Children with congenital anomalies involving the hand, the forearm, or both are often seen by hand surgeons. An unknown proportion have inherited bone marrow-failure syndromes, such as Fanconi's anemia, Diamond-Blackfan anemia, thrombocytopenia-absent radii, and others. In many cases the hematologic cytopenias are not yet apparent at the time of surgery. This review discusses these syndromes, summarizing the types of malformation, the types of hematologic complication, and the ages at which they occur. There are often clues in otherwise normal hematologic data, such as macrocytic red cells or slow decreases in blood counts that are still at a level at which surgery can be performed. Early and often presymptomatic diagnosis is of value for the planning of staged surgery before cytopenias preclude intervention, the performance of surgery after hematologic improvements, and genetic counseling for young families in which syndromes with a known inheritance pattern might be detected in utero. Hand surgeons may be the first to make these important diagnoses.

Adolescent↗

Development of a quantitative hand grasp and release test for patients with tetraplegia using a hand neuroprosthesis.

We developed a quantitative grasp and release test for assessing a hand neuroprosthesis in C5 and C6 level tetraplegic patients. The objectives were (1) to determine if a patient's hand performance with the neuroprosthesis exceeded a defined, clinically acceptable baseline, (2) to compare performance with and without the neuroprosthesis, (3) to measure the consistency of performance over time, and (4) to compare performance among patients. In the test, patients grasped, moved, and released one of six different objects as many times as possible in five 30-second trials for each object, with and without the neuroprosthesis. Unlike earlier tests, the objects and the task were chosen to span a range of difficulties appropriate for C5 and C6 tetraplegic patients using a hand neuroprosthesis. Data from five patients showed that performance with the neuroprosthesis was above the baseline; performance improved with the neuroprosthesis, although it was not generally consistent across sessions; and the neuroprosthesis helped C5 patients manipulate most objects and helped C6 patients primarily with more difficult objects.

Adult↗

Surgical hand rubbing compared with surgical hand scrubbing: comparison of efficacy and costs.

The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of surgical hand rubbing (SHR) with the efficacy of surgical hand scrubbing (SHS), and to determine the costs of both techniques for surgical hand disinfection. A review of studies reported in the literature that compared the efficacy of SHS and SHR was performed using MEDLINE. The costs of SHR and SHS were estimated based on standard hospital costs. The literature showed that SHR had immediate efficacy that was similar to that of SHS, but SHR had a more lasting effect. SHR reduced costs by 67%. In conclusion, SHR is a cost-effective alternative to SHS.

Disinfection↗

Performing hand actions assists the visual discrimination of similar hand postures.

Recent theoretical work has suggested that internal predictive signals are used for motor control and coordination. The predictive signal - proposed to be the output of a forward model - would be a sensory representation of action. Hence, these sensory representations could potentially influence other sensory processes. We report here how performance of hand actions assisted the visual discrimination of target hand postures presented at random times within an on-going series of hand images. Reaction times to discriminate the targets were significantly shorter when the displayed images were both sequential and congruent with the action being performed. Hence, the planning or execution of action appears to allow better prediction of a displayed series of congruent images. In further control experiments, we show that the motor-visual priming effect is unlikely to be due to differential attentional demands and it is specific to a first person perspective display; it is short lasting, being lost if a 500 ms delay is introduced between successive stimulus presentations. The data are interpreted as evidence supporting the hypothesis that forward models in the motor system provide action-specific sensory predictions that are available to cognitive processes.

Adolescent↗

A viral infection of the hand commonly seen after the feast of sacrifice: human orf (orf of the hand).

Orf of the hand is an uncommon zoonotic infection caused by a dermotropic DNA virus that belongs to the Parapoxvirus genus of the family Poxviridae. It is transmitted to humans through contact with infected sheep and goats and is reported as an occupational disease. We report nine cases of human orf seen in the hands of individuals, who were not occupationally exposed, after the feast of sacrifice in Turkey. Three cases were teachers and six out of the nine were housewives. We observed musculoskeletal complications and misdiagnoses. It is important to consider human orf in the differential diagnosis of hand lesions to prevent overtreatment and complications.

Adult↗

Repeated exposures to cobalt or chromate on the hands of patients with hand eczema and contact allergy to that metal.

The present study aimed at evaluating the effects of daily repeated exposures to low cobalt or chromate concentrations on the hands of patients with hand eczema and cobalt or chromate allergy. For 2 weeks, the patients immersed a finger for 10 min daily into the appropriate metal salt solution in water. During the 1st week, this was a 10 or 50 mg/l cobalt concentration or a 10 mg/l chromate concentration, and, during the 2nd week, a 100 or 200 mg/l cobalt concentration or a 100 mg/l chromate concentration. This regimen elicited a flare of hand eczema only in the chromate-exposed chromate-sensitive patients. During the exposure period, accumulation of cobalt or chromate in the nail was demonstrated. Standardization of chemical methods of quantification of skin exposure to allergens, combined with experimental exposure studies in patients with specific contact allergy, will increase the possibility of providing evidence-based medicine in the area of allergic contact dermatitis in the future.

Aged↗