Clinical assessment of hand oedema: A systematic review:

IntroductionAssessment of oedema after trauma or surgery is important to determine whether treatment is effective and to detect change over time. Volumetry is referred to as the ‘gold standard’ method of measuring volume. However, this has practical limitations and other methods are available. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the psychometric properties of alternative methods used to assess hand oedema.MethodsA search of electronic bibliographic databases was undertaken for any studies published in English reporting the psychometric evaluation of a method for measuring hand oedema, in an adult population with hand swelling from surgery, trauma or stroke. The Consensus‐based Standards for the Selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) checklist was used to evaluate the methodological quality.ResultsSix studies met the inclusion criteria. Three methods were identified assessing hand oedema: perometry, visual inspection and the figure-of-eight tape measure, all were compared to vol...