Reliability and Feasibility of using a Hand Held Dynamometer in HTLV
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Establishing the Reliability and Feasibility of using a Hand Held Dynamometer to measure strength in people with HTLV Infection
IRAS ID
201513
Contact name
Adine Adonis
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London Healthcare NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
The Human T-Lymphotrophic Virus type 1(HTLV-1) affects 10-20 million people worldwide. Approximately 3% of these develop HTLV-1 associated myelopathy (HAM) and those who do not develop myelopathy may remain asymptomatic carriers of the virus for their lifetime. HAM is an inflammation of the spinal cord, and follows a variable course from mild to rapidly progressing, hampering daily activities. The tests we use lack sensitivity to detect early changes in function, therefore more sensitive tests are needed to help us detect when a patient’s function first deteriorates.This would allow initiation of therapies sooner, improving their quality of life and preventing worsening disability. In addition sensitive measures are needed to monitor our patients with established disease both for further deterioration and also for improvement during therapy.
Reduced muscle strength is an early sign of developing or worsening HAM, and a reliable way to detect and quantify changes is needed. Currently, manual muscle testing is used for HAM and other neurological conditions, however it is neither reliable nor sufficiently sensitive to change. Measuring muscle strength with a hand held dynamometer may be more reliable and sensitive.
The primary aim of this study is to establish whether this tool is reliable and whether it is feasible to use in our setting and secondly to explore the feasibility of recruiting participants to a further study measuring muscle strength using a highly sensitive, but more costly isokinetics machine.
60 patients with HTLV infection will undergo muscle strength evaluation using the HHD on 2 separate occasions 4 weeks apart. The study will be conducted within the HTLV outpatient clinic setting.
REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/SW/0228
Date of REC Opinion
25 Jul 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion