Review Article
Year: 2020 | Month: February | Volume: 10 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 223-227
Effect of Usage and Compliance of Hand Splints on Activities of Daily Living In Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Review
Rohina Kumari1, Sakshi Saharawat2
1Student, MPO, ISIC Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences, New Delhi, India;
2Assistant Professor, MPO, ISIC Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences, New Delhi, India;
Corresponding Author: Rohina Kumari
ABSTRACT
Background: Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory, systemic and autoimmune disease. Many of the deformities that occur with RA affect the ability to grip, pinch, and flex / extend the fingers and wrists, all compromising functional ability. This often leads individuals to adapt their daily activities or to stop doing different hobbies and activities altogether. As part of a comprehensive RA management, as well as other interventions, splints or orthoses are recommended to treat disease symptoms to help improve performance in daily activities. Nevertheless, several clinicians and physicians have found poor compliance with splint use in clinical practice.
Objective: This literature review aims to review the effect of usage and compliance of hand splints on activities of daily living in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
Study Design: Literature Review
Significance: This review was done to investigate the rate of hand splint use and compliance in patients with RA. Because these two factors are defined as the main issue that interferes with treatment success and clinical outcomes in RA.
Method: An electronic database search was conducted using Google scholar, Science direct, Pub Med, Cochrane Library and reference lists from all retrieved articles.
Result & Discussion: The relationship between specific limitations and the use of adaptive devices could imply that the prescription of hand splint should preferably be limited to those patients who are currently or are likely to have impaired or limited device-related activity. 5 17 per cent of patients with immobilization splints were found to be most likely to be compliant, i.e. those who rested more than 2 hours a day – regularly used splints; on the other hand. 57 per cent of patients with activity splints used their splints on a regular basis. Rate of regular hand splint use was 36.6 percent. The cause of irregular hand splint use was splint discomfort in half of patients.
Conclusion: Compliance with the use of splints in the RA population has previously been studied in various studies. The compliance rate ranged from 25 percent to 65 percent. Unfortunately, the selection of patients has not been specified and predefined in the studies carried out so far. The results found to be not very reliable. Approximately half of RA patients had splints and 58 per cent of them were actually used. In addition to local complaints and general functional capability, the comfort of the splints is a major factor.
Key words: Rheumatoid arthritis, Hand splints, Compliance, Usage