I was in A&E last week. During the examination one of the things they made me do was put my fingers together so that only the middle joint of each finger was touching. Can’t work out what on earth this would show, anyone care to shed any light. Mildly curious

(was not there for any sort of hand related injury)

they were testing your obedience.

I did wonder 🙂

Finger adbudction test

my fingers dance gently about of their own accord. If i try and hold them as you describe, a) – its difficult for me to do, the longer I try and hold them still the more they start to skip side to side and b) you can seen the movement more clearly, if my fingers are spread the movement is still there but its difficult to see

so maybe they were trying to see if co-ordination was impared in someway

Bit unfair to test coordination after administering morphine

Had you injured your neck/shoulder? Or the side of your arm/elbow?

You can just see everyone who reads this post trying to do that test.

You can just see everyone who reads this post trying to do that test.

Yup 😀
For a while I was comparing my nail beds – shamrothes
Then I realised the op meant finger adduction. Doh

Not sure i’ve descibed it correctly as the results for abduction/adduction don’t look like the test i did.

Basically hands arranged as though pointing, with all but index finger tucked away, then index fingers bent and touching knuckle to knuckle

they’re just wondering how you’ll cope when they amputate the tips

Nail bed to nail bed like this?

I suppose it tests lots of things;
Hearing, understanding, motor power, fine motor control, symmetry in terms of motor and nerve control.

It’s basically a reasonably technical motor skills test of your upper limb function.

Can’t see that image, but not nailbed to nailbed. Middle bit of finger

Hmmm well I’m out, I thought they might be checking for clubbing.

someone must have a pic of this test – I can’t actually touch the middle joints of my fingers together with out pressign my hands together quite hard.

This is what I thought the OP was doing

Make a fist, touch knuckles together, now just touch index finger knuckles together…

Tests proprioreception too…

Was a med student asking so always a chance it could have been wrong….

I’m going to put a fat load of money on clubbing then 😀

Testing proprioception would have you closing your eyes and isolating joints etcs

Middle bit of finger

Ah, checking that the middle phalanx is same length on each hand. Basically to see if you’re an international jetset spy who’s had a hand transplant to allow you to open fingerprint-secured doors. We get ’em in all the time.

I bet they looked at your retinas too. Same game.

Med student?
Oh God, it could be any old wierd stuff then, depending on what book he/she was reading the night before…

My money’s on clubbing too. Possibly done incorrectly.