Assessing tactile acuity in rheumatology and musculoskeletal medicine-How reliable are two-point discrimination tests at the neck, hand, back and foot?

Rheumatology (United Kingdom)

Volumn 52, Issue 8, 2013, Pages 1454-1461

  Catley, Mark J ^a   Tabor, Abby ^a   Wand, Benedict M ^b   Moseley, G Lorimer ^a,c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA   (Australia)

^b UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME   (Australia)

^c NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH AUSTRALIA   (Australia)

Author keywords

Cortical reorganisation; Reliability; Repeatability; Tactile acuity; Two point discrimination

Indexed keywords

ACCURACY; ADULT; ARTICLE; CONTROLLED STUDY; FEMALE; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; INTRARATER RELIABILITY; MALE; NORMAL HUMAN; PAIN ASSESSMENT; PAIN THRESHOLD; PRIORITY JOURNAL; RHEUMATOLOGY; TACTILE DISCRIMINATION; TWO POINT DISCRIMINATOR;

CORTICAL REORGANISATION; RELIABILITY; REPEATABILITY; TACTILE ACUITY; TWO-POINT DISCRIMINATION;

ADULT; COHORT STUDIES; FEMALE; FOOT; HAND; HUMANS; MALE; MUSCULOSKELETAL DISEASES; NECK; OBSERVER VARIATION; PATTERN RECOGNITION, PHYSIOLOGICAL; PSYCHOMOTOR PERFORMANCE; REFERENCE VALUES; REPRODUCIBILITY OF RESULTS; RHEUMATIC DISEASES; RHEUMATOLOGY; TOUCH PERCEPTION;

EID: 84880584732     PISSN: 14620324     EISSN: 14620332     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/rheumatology/ket140     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Lundborg G, Rosen B. The two-point discrimination test: time for a re-appraisal? J Hand Surg Am 2004;29: 418-22.
2. Jerosch-Herold C. Assessment of sensibility after nerve injury and repair: a systematic review of evidence for validity, reliability and responsiveness of tests. J Hand Surg Am 2005;30:252-64.
3. Lotze M, Moseley GL. Role of distorted body image in pain. Curr Rheumatol Rep 2007;9:488-96.
4. Moseley GL, Flor H. Targeting cortical representations in the treatment of chronic pain: a review. Neurorehabil Neural Repair 2012;26:646-52.
5. Flor H, Elbert T, Knecht S et al. Phantom-limb pain as a perceptual correlate of cortical reorganization following arm amputation. Nature 1995;375:482-4.
6. Pleger B, Ragert P, Schwenkreis P et al. Patterns of cortical reorganization parallel impaired tactile discrimination and pain intensity in complex regional pain syndrome. Neuroimage 2006;32:503-10.
7. Pleger B, Tegenthoff M, Ragert P et al. Sensorimotor returning in complex regional pain syndrome parallels pain reduction. Ann Neurol 2005;57:425-9.
8. Maihöfner C, Handwerker HO, Neundörfer B et al. Cortical reorganization during recovery from complex regional pain syndrome. Neurology 2004;63:693-701.
9. Moseley GL. I can't find it! Distorted body image and tactile dysfunction in patients with chronic back pain. Pain 2008;140:239-43.
10. Luomajoki H, Moseley GL. Tactile acuity and lumbopelvic motor control in patients with back pain and healthy controls. Br J Sports Med 2011;45: 437-40.
11. Flor H, Elbert T, Braun C et al. Extensive reorganization of primary somatosensory cortex in chronic back pain patients. Neurosci Lett 1997;224:5-8.
12. Gwilym SE, Filippini N, Douaud G et al. Thalamic atrophy associated with painful osteoarthritis of the hip is reversible after arthroplasty: a longitudinal voxelbased morphometric study. Arthritis Rheum 2010;62: 2930-40.
13. Stanton TR, Lin CWC, Bray H et al. Tactile acuity is disrupted in osteoarthritis but is unrelated to disruptions in motor imagery performance. Rheumatology 2013;52: 1509-19.
14. Flor H, Denke C, Schaefer M et al. Effect of sensory discrimination training on cortical reorganisation and phantom limb pain. Lancet 2001;357:1763-4.
15. Moseley GL, Zalucki NM, Wiech K. Tactile discrimination, but not tactile stimulation alone, reduces chronic limb pain. Pain 2008;137:600-8.
16. Moseley GL, Wiech K. The effect of tactile discrimination training is enhanced when patients watch the reflected image of their unaffected limb during training. Pain 2009; 144:314-9.
17. Wand BM, O'Connell NE, Di Pietro F et al. Managing chronic nonspecific low back pain with a sensorimotor retraining approach: exploratory multi-baseline study of 3 participants. Phys Ther 2011;91:535-46.
18. Johnson KO, Van Boven RW, Hsiao SS. The perception of two points is not the spatial resolution threshold. In: Boivie J, Hansson P, Lindblom U, eds. Touch, temperature, and pain in health and disease: mechanisms and assessments. Seattle, WA: IASP Press, 1994:389-404.
19. Mackinnon SE, Dellon AL. Two-point discrimination tester. J Hand Surg Am 1985;10:906-7.
20. Auld ML, Boyd RN, Moseley GL et al. Tactile assessment in children with cerebral palsy: a clinimetric review. Phys Occup Ther Pediatr 2011;31:413-39.
21. Nolan MF. Two-point discrimination assessment in the upper limb in young adult men and women. Phys Ther 1982;62:965.
22. Nolan MF. Limits of two-point discrimination ability in the lower limb in young adult men and women. Phys Ther 1983;63:1424.
23. Nolan MF. Quantitative measure of cutaneous sensation. Two-point discrimination values for the face and trunk. Phys Ther 1985;65:181.
24. Woodward KL. The relationship between skin compliance, age, gender, and tactile discrimination thresholds in humans. Somatosens Mot Res 1993;10:63-7.
25. Moberg E. Two-point discrimination test: a valuable part of hand surgical rehabilitation, e.g. in tetraplegia. Scand J Rehabil Med 1990;22:127-34.
26. Bland JM, Altman DG. Statistical methods for assessing agreement between two methods of clinical measurement. Lancet 1986;1:307-10.
27. McGraw KO, Wong SP. Forming inferences about some intraclass correlation coefficients. Psychol Methods 1996; 1:30-46.
28. Portney LG, Watkins MP. Foundations of clinical research: applications to practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/ Prentice Hall, 2009.
29. Atkinson G, Nevill AM. Statistical methods for assessing measurement error (reliability) in variables relevant to sports medicine. Sports Med 1998;26:217-38.
30. Sohn SA, Simons BP. Functional anatomy of the hand. In: Wolford EG, ed. Acute hand injuries: a multidisciplinary approach. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980:32-42.
31. Mackworth NH. Finger numbness in very cold winds. J Appl Physiol 1953;5:533-43.
32. Sinclair D. Psychophysiology of cutaneous sensation. In: Jarret A, ed. Physiology and pathophysiology of the skin. London: Academic Press, 1973:429-73.
33. Omer GE. Sensibility testing. In: Omer GE, Spinner D, eds. Management of peripheral nerve problems. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1980:3-15.
34. Porter RW. New test for finger-tip sensation. Br Med J 1966;2:927-8.
35. Finnell JT, Knopp R, Johnson P et al. A calibrated paper clip is a reliable measure of two-point discrimination. Acad Emerg Med 2004;11:710-4.
36. Moberg E. Objective methods for determining the functional value of sensibility testing in the hand. J Bone Joint Surg Br 1958;40:454-76.
37. Kaneko A, Asai N, Kanda T. The influence of age on pressure perception of static and moving two-point discrimination in normal subjects. J Hand Ther 2005;18: 421-5.
38. Wand B, Di PF, George P et al. Tactile thresholds are preserved yet complex sensory function is impaired, over the lumbar spine of chronic non-specific low back pain patients: a preliminary investigation. Physiotherapy 2010; 96:317-23.
39. Godde B, Stauffenberg B, Spendler F et al. Tactile coactivation- induced changes in spatial discrimination performance. J Neurosci 2000;20:1597-604.
40. Novak CB, Mackinnon SE, Williams JI et al. Establishment of reliability in the evaluation of hand sensibility. Plast Reconstr Surg 1993;92:311-22.
41. Dellon AL, Mackinnon SE, Crosby PM. Reliability of twopoint discrimination measurements. J Hand Surg Am 1987;12:693-6.
42. Field AP. Intraclass correlation. In: Everitt BS, Howell DC, eds. Encyclyopedia of statistics in behavioral science. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2005.
43. Rozental TD, Beredjiklian PK, Guyette TM et al. Intra- and interobserver reliability of sensibility testing in asymptomatic individuals. Ann Plast Surg 2000;44:605-9.