Highlights
- •A scoping review of hand function in children and adolescents with Down Syndrome.
- •Physical characteristics of the upper extremity in Down Syndrome are detailed.
- •The correlation between upper extremity physical characteristics and determinants of hand function is explored.
Abstract
Background
Down Syndrome (DS) is a genetic condition. Physical characteristics like short stature,
hypotonia, small, and thick hands result in decreased grip and pinch strength and
quality of fine motor tasks.
Purpose
The purpose of this review is to summarize the evidence of upper extremity physical
characteristics and its influence on hand function in DS population.
Study Design
A scoping review.
Methodology
A comprehensive electronic literature search was conducted through PubMed, CINAHL,
Cochrane Library. The search was limited to articles written in English and published
between 2010 to 2021. Additionally, books were referred for a better understanding
of the hand function in DS. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and
Meta-Analysis extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) was adopted to develop the
protocol.
Results
Following a detailed review of 28 articles meeting the inclusion criteria, fetuses
with a diagnosis of DS are reported to have shortening of humerus on sonographic markers
wherein 9% of fetuses had below 5th percentile shortening. Additionally, literature
reports that during reaching there was increased trunk rotation (effect size = 0.88).
DS population had 60% less grip strength, 33% less palmar pinch strength ,20% less
key pinch strength and poor manual dexterity (CI = 4.5-5.5).
Conclusion
Findings of this review concludes that physical characteristics of the upper extremity
have an influence on hand function performance in children and adolescents with DS.However,
only arm length and hand span have been quantified and correlated with grip strength.
Further work must focus on correlation of upper extremity anthropometry and overall
hand function in children and adolscents with DS.
Keywords
Abbreviations:
DS (Down Syndrome), TD (Typically Developing), ID (Intellectual disability), M-ABC (Movement assessment battery for children), CoP (Centre of pressure), RTG (Reach to grasp), BOT2 (Bruininks- Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficicency -2), GMFM (Gross motor function measure), NMT (Neuromuscular tapping), T21 (Trisomy 21)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: September 17, 2022
Accepted:
July 5,
2022
Received in revised form:
July 4,
2022
Received:
August 14,
2021
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofFootnotes
Conflict of interest: We declare that there is no conflicting interest, guiding this research.
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
