Verifying the usefulness of the Capabilities of Upper Extremity Test (CUE-T) for cervical spinal cord injury patients in Japan

Abstract

The Capabilities of Upper Extremity Test (CUE-T) is a detailed upper extremity function evaluation specialized for CSCI. The purpose of this research was to verify the clinical usefulness of CUE-T in Japan. The subjects were 19 CSCI patients. In the first study we examined the correlation between CUE-T and the general evaluation method. In the second study we visualized and analyzed the changes over time in CUE-T, and general upper extremity evaluation method in 4 CSCI patients. In the first study CUE-T and the general evaluation method were Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient of 0.7 or higher (p<.01), while in the second study CUE-T detected detail changes in upper limb function in all cases. The results indicate good validity of CUE-T in Japan and its sensitivity to changes.