Measuring Hand Edema in Burn Patients

United States Army Institute of Surgical Research

Status

Completed

Conditions

Edema

Treatments

Procedure: water volumetry hand measurements

Procedure: figure-of-eight hand measurements

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT00137228

H-04-030

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to determine the reliability and concurrent validity of the figure-of-eight method of measuring hand edema in the burn patient population. Establishing the reliability and validity would enable a more time efficient assessment than the currently accepted methods.

Full description

A prospective study involving 33 burn patients admitted to the US Army Burn Center. Two raters will perform three separate blinded measurements for hand edema using the figure-of-eight measurement technique. A third rater will then perform two blinded measurements using water volumetry. All measurements will be read and recorded by an independent recorder. The three measurements of rater 1 and 2 will be analyzed to determine intratester reliability. The average of the three figure-of-eight measurements will be compared to measure intertester reliability. The two volumetry measurements will be compared to determine intratester reliability. The average of the 2 volumetry measurements and the average fo the three figure-of-eight measurements will be used to determine concurrent validity.

Enrollment

20 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 89 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Male or female 18-89 years old
Admitted to the United States (U.S.) Army Burn Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or ward with burn injury and the presence of bilateral or unilateral hand edema

Exclusion criteria

Subject unable to be placed in test position for volumetry testing or the presence of a medical condition, as defined by a physician, that precludes the safe use of volumetry.
Subject is unable to tolerate his/her hand(s) being immersed in room temperature water for volumetry testing.
Subject does not have any of the bony landmarks (due to amputation, previous surgery) required to perform the figure-of-eight measurement