MDLinxShould This Be the 5th Vital Sign?

Elevating Hand-Grip Strength: A Potential New Vital Sign with Multidimensional Clinical Implications

Hand-grip strength (HGS) is stepping into the spotlight as a potential vital sign, given its predictive power for a range of health outcomes. This summary encapsulates the pivotal findings from recent research, spotlighting the significance of HGS in clinical practice. With its ease of measurement, cost-effectiveness, and non-invasive nature, HGS offers a valuable lens through which physicians can assess and monitor patient health, enhancing the predictive accuracy of clinical evaluations and patient care strategies.

Key Points:

• Hand-grip strength (HGS) is proposed by experts to be considered the fifth vital sign due to its ability to predict diverse health outcomes.
• Measuring HGS is straightforward, inexpensive, and non-invasive, facilitating broader patient health assessments.
• HGS reflects overall body strength and is a proxy for sarcopenia, which is linked to several major diseases including metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer.
• Absolute HGS (absHGS) predicts muscle strength effectively, while relative HGS (relHGS) is associated with adverse health outcomes and may be more clinically relevant.
• HGS measurement can be seamlessly integrated into routine clinical assessments, enhancing patient engagement and promoting lifestyle modifications.
• In the context of long COVID, reduced HGS correlates with poorer respiratory function and reduced muscle strength, indicating its broader implications for post-viral recovery and health.
• Serial HGS measurements can track changes in muscle strength over time, offering insights into patient progress or decline.
• The adoption of universal HGS standardization could enhance clinical application, allowing comparisons across studies and populations.
• Recognizing HGS’s clinical value could assist in early disease detection, patient stratification, and targeted intervention, potentially improving outcomes and quality of life.

HCN Medical Memo
Hand-grip strength (HGS) serves as an indicative marker of not only overall strength and upper limb function but also reflects on an individual’s susceptibility to fractures, bone mineral density, heart disease, nutritional status, cognitive health, and is linked with various conditions such as cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic liver disease, chronic respiratory disease, enhancing its value in assessing overall quality of life.

More on Health Outcomes