ABSTRACT

A review of the currently available literature on the wrist clearly demonstrates that outcome measures overlap those for the hand. The most common outcomes reported for different wrist disorders are range of movement and grip strength. The commonest form used is the Mayo Clinic wrist score (Cooney et al. 1987) with the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) (Hudak et al. 1996) being used as a disability score more recently, and the Patient Evaluation Measure (PEM) (Dias et al. 2001) being used in some studies from the UK. The evolution of wrist scores lags far behind those for the knee and shoulder. This chapter provides information on some of the objective and subjective outcome measures used in reporting on disorders of the wrist.