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Key Words: assessment process, occupational therapy * self-care
The utility of specific tests in predicting functional activity is important to every clinical occupational therapist. With shortened hospital stays, manpower shortages, and administrative pressure for productivity, therapists must be able to evaluate a patient's functional activity quickly and accurately. The present paper addresses the utility of the Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test (Jebsen, Taylor, Treischmann, Trotter, & Howard, 1969) in predicting functional hand use in activities of daily living. The Klein-Bell ADL Scale (Klein & Bell, 1 982) was used to measure activities of daily living.
Method
As part of a follow-up study of the long-term functional effects of traumatic central spinal cord injury (Bridle, Lynch, & Quesenberry, in press), Quesenberry, an occupational therapist, administered the Jebsen-Taylor test and the Klein-Bell scale to 18 subjects in their homes. The subjects' ages ranged from 26 to 70 years (mean age = 52 years).
For the Jebsen-Taylor test, the subjects performed and were timed on seven tasks measuring various hand activities. The task completion times were then converted to standard scores for the interpretation of results. The higher the score, the poorer the hand function: a score of 0 indicates normal hand function. One of the objectives of the Jebsen-Taylor test is to assess patterns of hand function commonly used in activities of daily living (Jebsen et al., 1969). Test-retest reliability for...