Trial reportBMC neurology2014
A retrospective analysis of hand tapping as a longitudinal marker of disease progression in Huntington's disease.
Trial report in BMC neurology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Advances in Huntington's Disease Biomarkers: A 10-Year Bibliometric Analysis and a Comprehensive Review.Biology · 2025Review
- Genetic load determines atrophy in hand cortico-striatal pathways in presymptomatic Huntington's disease.Human brain mapping · 2018Article
- Sleep deficits but no metabolic deficits in premanifest Huntington's disease.Annals of neurology · 2015Article
- Novel Nut and Bolt Task Quantifies Motor Deficits in Premanifest and Manifest Huntington's Disease.PLoS currents · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCurrent clinical assessments of motor function in Huntington's Disease (HD) rely on subjective ratings such as the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating scale (UHDRS). The ability to track disease progression using simple, objective, inexpensive, and robust measures would be beneficial.
methodsOne objective measure of motor performance is hand-tapping. Over the last 14 years we have routinely collected, using a simple device, the number of taps made by the right and left hand over 30 seconds in HD patients attending our NHS clinics.
resultsHere we report on a longitudinal cohort of 237 patients, which includes patients at all stages of the disease on a wide range of drug therapies. Hand tapping in these patients declines linearly at a rate of 5.1 taps per year (p < 0.0001; 95% CI = 3.8 to 6.3 taps), and for each additional year of age patients could perform 0.9 fewer taps (main effect of age: p = 0.0007; 95% CI = 0.4 to 1.4). Individual trajectories can vary widely around this average rate of decline, and much of this variation could be attributed to CAG repeat length. Genotype information was available for a subset of 151 patients, and for each additional repeat, patients could perform 5.6 fewer taps (p < 0.0001; 95% CI = 3.3 to 8.0 taps), and progressed at a faster rate of 0.45 fewer taps per year (CAG by time interaction: p = 0.008; 95% CI = 0.12 to 0.78 taps). In addition, for each unit decrease in Total Functional Capacity (TFC) within individuals, the number of taps decreased by 6.3 (95% CI = 5.4 to 7.1, p < 0.0001).
conclusionsHand tapping is a simple, robust, and reliable marker of disease progression. As such, this simple motor task could be a useful tool by which to assess disease progression as well therapies designed to slow it down.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.