Development of a “pet bottle cap test”,a new method to evaluate the upper limb function

Abstract

The present study aimed to introduce how to conduct a pet bottle cap test (PBT), which was developed to evaluate the upper limb function (movements of both hands), and discuss the reproducibility of measurement values. PBT and the Purdue pegboard test (PPT) were conducted involving 40 healthy adults (20 males and 20 females). In order to determine the reproducibility of PBT, intra-class correlation coefficients were calculated using the test re-test method. In addition, sex -based differences were determined using the unpaired t -test, and the between-hand differences and test-performance frequency were determined using two-way analysis of variance with a repeated measurement method. As a result, the reproducibility of PBT was high (intra-class correlation coefficient: 0.796-0.819) without sex-based differences. On both PBT and PPT, the time taken to complete each test was significantly shorter for the dominant than non-dominant hand,and was significantly shorter for the second compared with first round of each test. Thus,the reproducibility of PBT was high, and the test -performance frequency and results regarding the dominant hand were similar between PBT and PPT, suggesting thattheformer can be used as a simple method to evaluate the upper limb function.