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We evaluate the finger motor function by measuring the area of the range of motion of fingers from using a 3-dimensional motion analysis system. The purposes of this study are 1) to test reliability and repeatability of the area measurement of normal subjects, 2) to establish a fingertip motion areadatabase of normal subjects, and 3) to clinicallyevaluate the impairment of fingers for patients. Ten health subjects had been tested by repeatedmeasurements three times, once in a week and last for three weeks. The between-week ICC was 0.94. Thewithin-week ICC was from 0.92 to 0.94. This resultmeant excellent reliability in our test. Normal data base was established from twenty health subjects.By 3-way ANOVA, there is no interaction in sex, hand and finger. And there are no significant differences in male/ female, left/right hand and different fingers. So, we used non- linear regression to calculate regressive function between finger length and area. This result is Area=0.677*length2. After evaluating twenty patients, there is high correlation, R=0.889, between our method with AMA(American Medical Association) standard. Our method for evaluation of finger motor functionmaybe better than others. The main reason is that a large area of fingertip motion includes not only larger range of finger joint angles, but also better coordination of finger joints.
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