ACR Meeting Abstracts

ACR Meeting Abstracts

  • Meetings
    • ACR Convergence 2024
    • ACR Convergence 2023
    • 2023 ACR/ARP PRSYM
    • ACR Convergence 2022
    • ACR Convergence 2021
    • ACR Convergence 2020
    • 2020 ACR/ARP PRSYM
    • 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting
    • 2018-2009 Meetings
    • Download Abstracts
  • Keyword Index
  • Advanced Search
  • Your Favorites
    • Favorites
    • Login
    • View and print all favorites
    • Clear all your favorites
  • ACR Meetings

Abstract Number: 380

A New Tool to Assess Muscle Strength in Polymyositis and Dermatomyositis: Hand-Held Dynamometry

Didem Saygin1, Chester V. Oddis2, Siamak Moghadam-Kia3, Diane Koontz4, Nicole Marie Neiman3 and Rohit Aggarwal5, 1Internal Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, 2Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Department of Medicine, Unviersity of Pittsburgh/University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, 3Rheumatology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 4Internal Medicine Division of Rheumatology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 5Medicine / Rheumatology, University of Pittsburgh/University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA

Meeting: 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting

Keywords: Muscle strength, myopathy and myositis

  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
Session Information

Date: Sunday, October 21, 2018

Title: Muscle Biology, Myositis and Myopathies Poster I: Clinical Features and Disease Course

Session Type: ACR Poster Session A

Session Time: 9:00AM-11:00AM

Background/Purpose: Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) is a group of systemic autoimmune diseases characterized by proximal muscle weakness, which is often assessed clinically using manual muscle testing (MMT). Studies have shown that patient’s weight and examiner’s experience and strength may play important roles in grading muscle strength with MMT. Therefore, more objective tools are required to quantify muscle strength in order to optimize treatment response in clinical trials and practice. Hand-held dynamometry (HHD) is a quantitative, inexpensive, compact device with reliability in several neuromuscular diseases. We aimed to assess reliability, validity and responsiveness of HHD in IIM.

Methods: The 6 validated myositis core set measures (CSM; manual muscle testing [MMT], physician global disease activity (MD-GDA), patient global disease activity (PT-GDA), extra-muscular global disease activity (EM-GDA), HAQ and muscle enzymes) and 3 functional measures (six-minute walk [6MWD], timed up-and-go [TUG] and sit-to-stand tests [STS]) were completed on patients with IIM [DM, PM, necrotizing myopathy (NM) or anti-synthetase syndrome] at baseline, 3 and 6 months. At each visit strength was assessed using HHD (Micro FET2, Hoggan Health Industries, Draper, UT) on 3 consecutive attempts. HHD was validated and compared with MMT as well as other CSMs and functional tests. Spearman correlations were used with rho >0.5 considered strong, 0.35-0.5 moderate, and 0.2-0.35 weak. We examined the test-retest reliability as well as HHD responsiveness.

Results: Fifty patients [mean age, 53.6 (±14.6); 30 females/20 males] were studied. Eleven of 50 had PM, 28 had DM, 7 had NM and 4 had anti-synthetase syndrome. HHD showed strong test-retest reliability (Rho: 0.96) and excellent internal consistency (Cronbach-α: 0.95). HHD correlated moderately with MMT score (R:0.44, p=0.003). HHD showed moderate to strong correlation with muscle disease activity (R:-0.5, p:0.0008) and MD-GDA (R:-0.4, p:0.006), HAQ (R:-0.5, p:0.0005), STS (R:0.5, p:0.0002), and 6MWD (R:0.4, p:0.005) (Table 1).  Longitudinal change in HHD strongly correlated with total improvement score (R:-0.6, p=0.01) at 6 months. HHD scores changed significantly in physician-reported “moderately-better” and “a-little-better” groups (p=0.01) demonstrating responsiveness to change. HHD did not change longitudinally in patients who had stable disease demonstrating reliability. MMT and HHD showed similar correlations with the conventional CSM, however, effect size and standardized response mean (SRM) of HHD was higher than MMT (0.56 vs 0.20; 0.33 vs 0.20).

Conclusion: HHD demonstrates good test-retest reliability, construct validity and responsiveness in a large cohort of patients with IIM and a better effect size and SRM than MMT.

 

Table. Comparison of MMT and hand-held DM

MMT

Hand-held DM

R

P value

R

P value

Physician global disease activity

-0.5

0.0001

-0.4

0.006

Patient global disease activity

-0.5

<.0001

-0.1

0.3

Extramuscular global disease activity

-0.7

<.0001

-0.5

0.0008

HAQ-DI

-0.6

<.0001

-0.5

0.0005

CK levels

-0.1

0.3

-0.03

0.8

Muscle disease activity

-0.7

<.0001

-0.5

0.0008

Peak sit-to-stand

0.5

0.0003

0.6

0.0002

Peak timed up-and-go

-0.1

0.4

-0.1

0.5

Six-minute walk test distance

0.55

0.0006

0.4

0.005

Effect size

0.20

0.56

Standardized response mean

0.20

0.33

 


Disclosure: D. Saygin, None; C. V. Oddis, None; S. Moghadam-Kia, None; D. Koontz, None; N. M. Neiman, None; R. Aggarwal, None.

To cite this abstract in AMA style:

Saygin D, Oddis CV, Moghadam-Kia S, Koontz D, Neiman NM, Aggarwal R. A New Tool to Assess Muscle Strength in Polymyositis and Dermatomyositis: Hand-Held Dynamometry [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2018; 70 (suppl 9). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/a-new-tool-to-assess-muscle-strength-in-polymyositis-and-dermatomyositis-hand-held-dynamometry/. Accessed .
  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

« Back to 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting

ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/a-new-tool-to-assess-muscle-strength-in-polymyositis-and-dermatomyositis-hand-held-dynamometry/

Advanced Search

Your Favorites

You can save and print a list of your favorite abstracts during your browser session by clicking the “Favorite” button at the bottom of any abstract. View your favorites »

All abstracts accepted to ACR Convergence are under media embargo once the ACR has notified presenters of their abstract’s acceptance. They may be presented at other meetings or published as manuscripts after this time but should not be discussed in non-scholarly venues or outlets. The following embargo policies are strictly enforced by the ACR.

Accepted abstracts are made available to the public online in advance of the meeting and are published in a special online supplement of our scientific journal, Arthritis & Rheumatology. Information contained in those abstracts may not be released until the abstracts appear online. In an exception to the media embargo, academic institutions, private organizations, and companies with products whose value may be influenced by information contained in an abstract may issue a press release to coincide with the availability of an ACR abstract on the ACR website. However, the ACR continues to require that information that goes beyond that contained in the abstract (e.g., discussion of the abstract done as part of editorial news coverage) is under media embargo until 10:00 AM ET on November 14, 2024. Journalists with access to embargoed information cannot release articles or editorial news coverage before this time. Editorial news coverage is considered original articles/videos developed by employed journalists to report facts, commentary, and subject matter expert quotes in a narrative form using a variety of sources (e.g., research, announcements, press releases, events, etc.).

Violation of this policy may result in the abstract being withdrawn from the meeting and other measures deemed appropriate. Authors are responsible for notifying colleagues, institutions, communications firms, and all other stakeholders related to the development or promotion of the abstract about this policy. If you have questions about the ACR abstract embargo policy, please contact ACR abstracts staff at [email protected].

Wiley

  • Online Journal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Permissions Policies
  • Cookie Preferences

© Copyright 2025 American College of Rheumatology