Handgrip measurement as a useful benchmark for locomotive syndrome in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A KAMOGAWA‐DM cohort study

AIMS/INTRODUCTION: To carry out a cross‐sectional single‐center study in a Japanese hospital to determine the diagnostic value of handgrip measurement to detect locomotive syndrome (LS). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Consecutive outpatients underwent an LS risk test, which comprised a stand‐up test and a two‐step test, and a handgrip measurement, along with general diabetes‐related tests. We calculated the prevalence of LS, and evaluated the association between handgrip strength and LS. RESULTS: We enrolled 234 patients in this study. The prevalence of LS in the stand‐up and two‐step tests was 51.5 and 79.0%, respectively. The prevalence of LS in the stand‐up or two‐step tests increased with age both in men and women. Using the stand‐up and two‐step tests, 107 patients (46.7%) were diagnosed with LS. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, used to assess our identification of LS in terms of grip strength in men and women, showed 95% confidence intervals of 0.703 (0.563–0.813) and 0.698 (0.500–0.842), respectively. The odds ratios of grip strength for LS were 0.90 (95% confidence interval 0.83–0.97) and 0.87 (95% confidence interval 0.76–0.98) in men and women, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings showed that handgrip measurement was useful in detecting LS, and LS should be considered when evaluating patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.