Introduction: In recent years, measurement of muscle mass and thickness has attracted attention for care prevention for older adults in the community setting. However, past studies in this field have been focused on muscle thickness of large muscles such as trunk muscles and lower limb muscles, and there have been no reports that have focused on atrophy of hand muscles which humpers daily occupations. Therefore, it would be important to easily measure muscle atrophy of hand intrinsic muscles.
Objectives: To investigate reliability and validity of measurement Interdigital Muscle Thickness (IDMT) using a caliper gauge.
Methods: The subjects were healthy young people (N=41). The IDMT was measured twice each in two limb positions with muscle relaxing and contracting by a caliper gauge. Reliability was determined by the intraclass correlation coefficient, and validity was determined by the correlation coefficient between results of the IDMT and other relevant scales.
Results: As the results, high inter- and intra- correlation coefficients were confirmed. In addition, regarding criterion-related validity, a significant moderate correlation was observed in the correlation coefficients between the IDMT and the other tests.
Conclusion: Measurement of the IDMT using a caliper gauge would be a reliable and valid method for easily evaluating the muscle thickness of the intrinsic muscles. Future research will be needed for older adults.