DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17879324
title: Medical device design for women in vascular surgery: Hand grip strengths and finger digit forces

description: This upload contains tables and figures of the data underlying the study Medical device design for women in vascular surgery: Hand grip strengths and finger digit forces. 

Table 1 MVC hand grip strength of women vascular surgeons.

Table 2 Table of stature and upper limb anthropometry.

Table 3 Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) results for simulated insertion and tracking forces.

Table 4 Between-subjects effects for simulated insertion and tracking forces.

Table 5 Tukey post-hoc test.

Supplementary Material A Table of Pearsons R correlation coefficient (r). Individual finger length and breadth compared to finger force contribution (N) averaged across all conditions for precision pinch.

Supplementary Material B Table of Pearsons R correlation coefficient (r). Individual finger length and breadth (mm) compared to finger force contribution (N) averaged across all conditions for stick pinch. 

Supplementary Material C Table of finger forces descriptive statistics for precision pinch

Supplementary Material D Table of finger forces descriptive statistics for stick pinch

Supplementary Material E Table of Summed Finger Forces Descriptive Statistics, stratified by hand size

Supplementary Material F  Table of Pearson’s R correlations (r) for demographic and anthropometric measures

Supplementary Material G Pearsons R correlation coefficient (r). Individual finger length and breadth compared to finger force contribution (N) averaged across all conditions for precision pinch.

Supplementary Material H Pearsons R correlation coefficient (r). Individual finger length and breadth compared to finger force contribution (N) averaged across all conditions for stick pinch. 

Supplementary Material I Plots of estimated marginal means for simulated insertion and tracking forces

Background: Women make up 15% of vascular surgeons in the US. However, there is a lack of anthropometric data on women to use in the design of cardiovascular devices. This can lead to devices that are not adequately designed for women surgeons who have smaller hands and lower grip strength than men. There is a lack of hand force data on women as necessary for the design of minimally invasive cardiovascular deployment devices.

Method: The study comprised N = 24 women vascular surgeons. Hand grip strengths and upper limb anthropometric measurements were measured. Finger force contributions during precision and stick pinch grasps for simulated insertion and advancement of minimally invasive cardiovascular through the vasculature were evaluated. Forces were recorded using Tactilus freeform sensors across different deployment device handle diameters (6 mm, 20 mm, and 40 mm) and insertion/tracking angles (0°, 15°, and 45° from horizontal) to reflect variations in use conditions. Pushing forces at the distal- end of device handles were assessed using a load cell. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and individual finger forces were aggregated to obtain total digit force values. These combined measures were then analysed with a MANOVA.

Results: Mean hand grip strengths were power grasp 284 N, lateral key pinch 72 N and precision pinch 45 N. For the simulated forces assessments, diameter had the largest effect (p < 0.01), with the 40 mm handle resulting in the greatest force generation for both summed digit forces and distal-end forces. The interaction between grasp and diameter was also significant (p < 0.01).

Conclusions: The intended grasp-type and working angle inferred for a specific task should be considered during the design process. Design strategies should be employed to optimise user force requirements. Future efforts to capture and share grip strength data from women surgeons will help facilitate more inclusive and effective medical device design.