Effect of a splint on measures of sustained grip exertion under different forearm and wrist postures

Despite the facts that gripping tasks have been found to be highly correlated with CTS and that splints are gaining popularity as personal protective equipment, the influence of splints on grip performance has not been determined adequately. The present study intends to investigate the influence of splints without the volar parts as well as of forearm and wrist postures on grip performances including maximal volitional contraction (MVC), maximum acceptable sustained time (MAST), cumulated exertion output (CEO), and normalized exertion level (NEL). Twenty college-student volunteers, 10 males and 10 females, were recruited. The factors of interest were gender, forearm position, wrist deviation, and splint (with and without). The forearm positions were set at 30 degrees internal shoulder rotation, 0 degrees internal shoulder rotation, and 30 degrees external shoulder rotation, the angles being measured between the sagittal plane and the long axis of dominant forearm. The wrist deviations were extension 30 degrees , neutral, and flexion 30 degrees , the angles being measured between the sagittal plane and the long axis of the grip gauge. The results indicate that the gender effect is the most dominantly significant on all evaluated response variables. Males have more MVC (220 vs. 337N), longer MAST (20.2 vs. 10.5s), and greater CEO (4306 vs. 1638Ns), but less NEL (66.6 vs. 73.9%MVC). The forearm posture is shown to be significant only on MVC. In addition, the effect of wrist posture cannot shift all responses, nor can the effect of splints. In general, a splint without volar part seems to be recommended while performing infrequent and forceful gripping tasks under the consideration of prevention, but there should be more information about the application of a splint without volar part while performing a repetitively gripping task.