Systemic sclerosis & Raynaud's
Validity and reliability of hand-held dynamometry for proximal strength assessment in systemic sclerosis-associated myopathy
Authors' conclusion
Hand-held dynamometry provides a quantitative assessment of proximal isometric strength in SSc-AM and demonstrated excellent intra-rater reproducibility in this study.
Study context
- Population
- Patients with SSc-associated myopathy (systemic sclerosis-associated myopathy (SSc-AM))8 retested by second examiner
- Participants
- 36 patients
- Exposure
- Hand-held dynamometry (HHD) vs MMT-8 and proximal MMT-3
- Outcome
- Validity (correlation of HHD with MMT) and reliability (intra- and inter-rater ICC) of HHD for proximal muscle strength
Methodological detailsprospective
- Prospective
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Correlation of composite HHD scores with MMT (Pearson r)
R
0.695
P < 0.0001
HHD vs MMT-8 · MMT-8 total scores
R
0.736
P < 0.0001
HHD vs MMT-3
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Intra-rater reliability of HHD, all proximal muscle groups (ICC range)
- Excellent across all proximal muscle groups; ICC range
- 0.885-0.985
Inter-rater reliability of HHD, neck flexors and shoulder abductors (ICC)
- Acceptable for neck flexors and shoulder abductors; ICC
- 0.60-0.75
- n = 8
Inter-rater reliability of HHD, hip abductors (ICC)
- Lower for hip abductors; ICC
- 0.06-0.13
- Reflecting higher stabilization requirements and small sample size (n = 8)
Original publication
Validity and reliability of hand-held dynamometry for proximal strength assessment in systemic sclerosis-associated myopathy. Semin Arthritis Rheum. Published 19 April 2026. doi:10.
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