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the terminal part of the upper limb of a human or a nonhuman primate.
ape hand one with the thumb permanently extended.
cleft hand a malformation in which the division between the fingers extends into the metacarpus; also, a hand with the middle digits absent.
claw hand see clawhand.
drop hand wristdrop.
lobster-claw hand cleft hand.
obstetrician's hand the contraction of the hand in tetany; the hand is flexed at the wrist, the fingers are flexed at the metacarpophalangeal joints but extended at the interphalangeal joints, and the thumb is strongly flexed into the palm.
writing hand in Parkinson's disease, assumption of the position by which a pen is commonly held.
Atrophy of the interosseous muscles of the hand with hyperextension of the metacarpophalangeal joints and flexion of the interphalangeal joints; develops as a result of nerve injury either at the spinal cord or peripheral nerve level.
claw handMain en griffe The hand deformity characterized by flexion and atrophy, which may follow the claw foot deformity of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, where the atrophy is usually confined to the distal arm; clawhand deformity may also occur in Dejerine-Sottas' hypertrophic polyneuropathy, leprosy, and Refsum's disease; a similar 'stiff hand' occurs in mucopolysaccharidosis, type I-S. Cf Lobster claw deformity.
claw·hand, claw hand (klaw'hand)
Atrophy of the interosseous muscles of the hand with hyperextension of the metacarpophalangeal joints and flexion of the interphalangeal joints.