Objective: To evaluate the competence of finger to crease (F-C) variation of the finger tapping test as opposed to the traditional method (F-T) in detecting bradykinesia in Parkinson’s disease patients and to evaluate the interrater reliability of the test.
Background: Neurologic examination is still the main source of data gathering for diagnosing and monitoring diseases. Items of neurologic examination need to be researched to assess their reliability, reproducibility, and correlation with different scales.
Method: We compared the two methods of detecting bradykinesia in 42 Parkinson’s disease patients. We examined our patients using the bradykinesia subscale of the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) and the Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) scales with the two methods of the finger-tapping test. To assess the interrater reliability of the test, a different pool of patients was used, in which four movement disorder specialists evaluated videos of 29 patients performing the finger-tapping test using the two methods with each hand.
Results: The finger-tapping test’s F-T and F-C methods were positively correlated with Parkinson staging based on the H&Y scale and the bradykinesia subsection of the UPDRS. Mean H&Y scores and UPDRS bradykinesia subscale scores given to the patients using the F-C method were significantly higher than those when the F-T method was employed (1.9±0.8 compared to 1.6±1.0, p<0.000, and 9.2±6.5 compared to 8.3±6.7, p<0.000). Using F-C instead of F-T led to a higher H&Y stage placement in 12 subjects. Both methods showed good to excellent inter-rater reliability (Cronbach’s alpha > 0.80).
Conclusion: Our findings show that this finger-tapping variation is reliable and may increase the sensitivity of the examination.
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To cite this abstract in AMA style:
F. Akhoundi, Y. Bordelon, J. Leverenz, P. Oikonomou, I. Litvan. Redefining the Finger-tapping Test in Parkinsonian Patients: Finger to Crease Instead of Finger-to-tip [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2025; 40 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/redefining-the-finger-tapping-test-in-parkinsonian-patients-finger-to-crease-instead-of-finger-to-tip/. Accessed October 5, 2025.« Back to 2025 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/redefining-the-finger-tapping-test-in-parkinsonian-patients-finger-to-crease-instead-of-finger-to-tip/