The Effect of Physiotherapy Program in Scleroderma Patients

Hand Mobility in Scleroderma is a hand function test developed for adults who have systemic sclerosis. HAMIS consists of 9 items designed to measure all movements assessed in an ordinary range of motion-measured hand test. Each item is graded on a 0-3 scale, where 0 corresponds to normal function and 3 denotes that the individual is unable to perform the item. Each hand is assessed separately. The total score of HAMIS for each hand is 370 Sandqvist and Eklund Vol. 13, No. 6, December 2000 27, which represents a high degree of dysfunction.

It is used to evaluate patients' hand and finger skills. The pegboard is placed in the middle of the body. It is desirable that 9 wooden pins be placed randomly in the 9-hole wooden block as fast as possible, and then the pins are removed from the wooden block and placed in the storage compartment one by one. These times are measured and recorded with a stopwatch. A total of 20 seconds or more is considered a "loss of skill".

The Duruoz Hand Index (DHI) is a self-report questionnaire designed to evaluate activity limitations of the hand. This scale contains 18 items. Every item has a score between 0-5 and total score changes between 0-90. Higher scores indicate severe hand-related disability.

The Scleroderma Health Assessment Questionnaire is a measurement tool for evaluating function in individuals with systemic scleroderma and has been used in a number of countries. SHAQ is made up of 20 items distributed among eight domains and has five additional domains that assess dysfunctions caused by the symptoms of systemic scleroderma. For this, five visual analogue scales (VASs) are used. The scores on these scales are converted to subscores ranging from 0 to 3 points. The overall score of the questionnaire is the sum of each of the five VAS subscores and the scores for the eight domains, divided by 13. Lower score indicates better health status.

The severity of pain and paresthesia symptoms of the patients will be assessed using the 10 cm Visual Analogue Scale. Before the assessment, patients instruct that "0" for "no symptoms", "10" represents "the most severe pain that could be felt" and should mark the point that best describes the symptom. The patient's rest, activity and night pain in the last week will be questioned separately. To evaluate the paresthesia, the most severe paresthesia felt by the patient in the last 1 week will be questioned and it will be asked to mark the place that best expresses paresthesia on the scale. Marked points measure by a ruler and record in centimeters.

The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index is a self-report questionnaire that assesses sleep quality over a 1-month time interval. The measure consists of 19 individual items, creating 7 components that produce one global score. Each item is weighted on a 0-3 interval scale. The global PSQI score is then calculated by totaling the seven component scores, providing an overall score ranging from 0 to 21, where lower scores denote a healthier sleep quality.

The Fatigue Severity Scale is a 9-item scale which measures the severity of fatigue and its effect on a person's activities and lifestyle in patients with a variety of disorders. Answers are scored on a seven point scale where 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree. This means the minimum score possible is nine and the highest is 63. The higher the score, the more severe the fatigue is and the more it affects the person's activities.