Handgrip prediction models for children, adults and the elderly.

INTRODUCTIONHandgrip strength has been measured as the maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) force a person can attain at the hand-handle contact while gripping and squeezing a standard handle with a power grip. It has been one of the most commonly used physical attributes of people for describing a variety of characteristics. As mentioned in Vaz et al. (2002), it has been proposed as a variable for the assessment of patients with neuromuscular diseases (Wiles et al., 1990), as an index of nutritional status (Brozek, 1984; Vaz et al., 1996; Jeejeeboy, 1998), for assessing the efficacy of nutritional intervention in hospitalized patients (Efthimiou et al., 1988; Wilson et al., 1986), and as a variable for predicting the degree of complications from surgery (Klidjian et al., 1980). Handgrip strength has also been one of the most useful indicators of a person’s manual handling capabilities in work situations. Ergonomics/human factors engineers use it for assessing people’s ability to perform manual tasks requiring gripping and squeezing and for determining design parameters for activation forces in hand tools (Fransson and Winkel, 1991). In the aforementioned applications, a knowledge of the grip strength of an individual is needed and must be measured directly or estimated (predicted), if unavailable. Considering the large number of factors that can affect strength measurements (Caldwell et al., 1974), high accuracy and reliability may not be easy and quick to achieve in direct measurements. Prediction of handgrip strength from variables that are simple to measure, such as anthropometric variables, may, therefore, be an alternative to direct measurement. Recently, Vaz et al. (2002) presented regression equations for predicting the grip strength of the non-dominant hand of 5-67 year old subjects in India, using anthropometric and demographic predictor variables. The anatomical association between