Manual Dexterity Impairment in Patients with Complete Paraplegia: An Exploratory Study

This exploratory study compared manual dexterity between 18 patients with complete paraplegia and 18 healthy controls using the Purdue Pegboard Test, finding significantly lower performance across all motor subtests in spinal cord injury patients despite clinically normal upper extremity strength and sensation. Results suggest that spinal cord injury-induced neural reorganization above the lesion may produce subclinical fine motor deficits in the upper extremities, with bilateral coordination being less predictable from dominant hand performance alone in injured patients.