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. 2021 Dec;46(10):1057-1063.
doi: 10.1177/17531934211004454. Epub 2021 Apr 19.

Validation of a smartphone application and wearable sensor for measurements of wrist motions

Fredrik Engstrand  1 , Erik Tesselaar  2 , Rickard Gestblom  1 , Simon Farnebo  1   3
Affiliations

Validation of a smartphone application and wearable sensor for measurements of wrist motions

Fredrik Engstrand et al. J Hand Surg Eur Vol. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

We developed a smartphone application to measure wrist motion using the mobile device's built-in motion sensors or connecting it via Bluetooth to a wearable sensor. Measurement of wrist motion with this method was assessed in 33 participants on two occasions and compared with those obtained with a standard goniometer. The test-retest reproducibility in healthy individuals ranged from good to excellent (intraclass correlation (ICC) 0.76-0.95) for all motions, both with and without the wearable sensor. These results improved to excellent (ICC 0.90-0.96) on the second test day, suggesting a learning effect. The day-to-day reproducibility was overall better with the wearable sensor (mean ICC 0.87) compared with the application without using sensor or goniometer (mean ICC 0.82 and 0.60, respectively). This study suggests that smartphone-based measurements of wrist range of motion are feasible and highly accurate, making it a powerful tool for outcome studies after wrist surgery.

Keywords: Wrist; outcome measures; range of motion; smart phone application.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: WristCheck has been developed in collaboration with Moose Medical HB. Simon Farnebo and Erik Tesselaar are both shareholders in Moose Medical

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Smartphone screen with WristCheck application running. Results are presented as a table over days ((a) vertical view) and as graphs ((f) horizontal view). patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and patient reported experience measures (PREMs) are accessible in the top panel (for example Pain and patient-rated wrist evaluation (PRWE)) (a). (b)–(e) Illustrates the different test positions, with WristCheck Application Only (AO) (b and d) and Application with external glove Sensor (AS) (c and e). Note that for AO, the subject must hold the smart phone in the palm (b and d), whereas for AS the test subject can follow instructions and see the results on the smartphone while doing the testing with the sensor on the hand (c and e).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Left: difference between angles measured with goniometer and Application Only (AO) set at three angles (30°, 60° and 90°) with the goniometer in benchtop experimental testing in three simulated motion directions. Right: difference between angles measured with goniometer and with AS as the wrist positions set at the three angles (30°, 60° and 90°) with the goniometer. Three measurements were made at each tested angle during benchtop testing with the goniometer set at fixed angles: 30°, 60° and 90° in three simulated direction of motions. Some of the simulated motion was tested over motion ranges exceeding those in human wrist and forearm.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Correlation between goniometer and Application Only (AO) (left) and Application with external glove Sensor (AS) (right) across all motions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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