A Study on Assessment of Hand Grip Strength in Medical Laboratory Technicians

Abstract

Measuring grip strength is an important part of hand injury evaluation. Hands undergo many physiological and anatomical changes with aging, though these effects on hand function are still poorly understood. The aim was to assess the hand grip strength among medical laboratory technicians in India. The cross sectional study was carried out among 108 medical laboratory technicians in the age group of 20 to 50 years and 38 subjects as control group from Mumbai and Kolkata. Hand grip strength has been measured with the help of using Jamar Hand Grip Dynamometer. The results indicated that there is an increase of hand grip strength up to the age of 40 years and 35 years in males and females respectively. Thereafter there is a gradual decline in the strength for the medical laboratory technicians. The primary factor for this is aging, and consequent decline of muscle mass. The other contributing factors are lack of body activity, improper work schedule and inappropriate design of tools, etc. There was a significant difference in the means of handgrip strength between males and females in all age groups. The dominant hand shows greater handgrip strength than the non dominant hand in both males and females and the difference was highly significant (p<0.05). There was a positive significant correlation between age and grip strength in the dominant hand (p<0.05).