Exploring the anatomical dimensions of hand and its correlation with height – An observational study in context of Indian population

Abstract

An inclusive study of relationship between lengths of hand and its correlation to height of person provides valuable help in generating biometric database. Limited research exists on morphometric assessment of hand dimensions in Indian population. The objective of the current study was to frame the morphometric database of hand measurements in context of its clinical implications. The generated data can be used in various anthropological studies. A Cross-sectional Indian population-based study was carried out among 500 male and female healthy students after excluding past history of trauma or illness after taking written, informed consent. Hand dimensions were measured by ‘Rod Compass’. The data was processed and analysed in SPSS Version 20 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Two tailed ‘p’ value of 0.05 was taken as statistically significant. Appropriate statistical tests of significance, correlation coefficients, and multiple regression correlations were computed to evaluate statistical differences. The mean hand length in the females was lower as compared to males who had significantly higher mean hand length in all age groups. The difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.001). The study revealed positive relationship between hand length and height. Hand dimensions provide good reliability in estimation of stature. This biometric data can be successfully utilized in management of various health ailments.