Peg-manipulation capabilities during a test of manual dexterity differ for persons with multiple sclerosis and healthy individuals

Manual dexterity declines with advancing age and the development of neurological disorders. Changes in manual dexterity are frequently quantified as the time it takes to complete the grooved pegboard test, which requires individuals to manipulate 25 pegs. The manipulation of each peg involves four phases: selection, transport, insertion, and return. The purpose of the study was to compare the times to complete the four phases of manipulating each peg and the forces applied to the pegboard during peg selection and insertion in persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) and age- and sex-matched healthy adults. Multiple-regression models that could explain the variance in pegboard times for each group of participants were compared to assess the relative significance of the peg-manipulation attributes. The performance of 17 persons with MS (52.2 +/- 8.3 years) was compared with 17 control subjects (52.2 +/- 11.5 years). The grooved pegboard test was performed on a force plate. Pegboard times for the MS group (104 +/- 40 s) were longer than those for the Control group (61 +/- 15 s). Regression analysis indicated that the pegboard times for the MS group could be predicted by the time for the peg-selection phase (R (2) = 0.78), whereas the predictors for Control group (R (2) = 0.77) were the times for the peg-transport (partial r = 0.80) and selection (partial r = 0.58) phases. The variance in the time it took the MS participants to complete the grooved pegboard test was strongly related to the time required to select each peg, whereas the pegboard times for the Control subjects depended mostly on the duration of the transport phase but also on the time to select each peg.