Wartenberg’s sign – Knowledge and References

Wartenberg's sign

Wartenberg's sign refers to the inability to maintain small finger adduction against the other fingers with the hand placed flat on the table, indicating overpowering of a weak third palmar interosseus by the unopposed extensor digiti minimi in the coronal plane. It is often associated with an ulnar nerve injury at the wrist and an ulnar claw hand, due to insertion of the EDM tendon into the tendon of ADM. It is caused by paralysis of the 3rd palmar interosseous muscle.From: Clinical Examination of the Hand [2022], Stone’s Plastic Surgery Facts [2018], Handbook of Plastic Surgery [2019]

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Published in Tor Wo Chiu, Stone’s Plastic Surgery Facts, 2018

Tor Wo Chiu

Look Wasting of the first DO, other intrinsics and hypothenar eminence.Ulnar claw. Lack of clawing if palsy occurs above the branch to the FDP. With palsy at the wrist, the action of long flexors causes IP flexion whilst there is a failure of lumbrical-mediated extension at the IPJs and flexion at MCPJs.Wartenberg’s sign – abducted little finger in the presence of an ulnar nerve injury at the wrist and an ulnar claw hand, due to insertion of the EDM tendon into the tendon of ADM (this is not Wartenberg’s syndrome, which is a neuritis of the superficial RN).

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Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2018

Frank W. Stahnisch, Jyh Yung Hor

This article is a brief exposé of German-American émigré neurologist Robert Wartenberg (1887–1956) and his multiple contributions to modern neurological diagnostics. These included, among many others, the Wartenberg neuronal wheel for skin sensitivity, the identification of cheiralgia paraesthetica as a neuropathy of the hand, as well as Wartenberg’s Sign as the little finger standing in abduction during situations of ulnar paresis, through which he decisively enriched neurological examination at patients’ bedsides.

Wartenberg's sign

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