Investigation of symptoms of hand skin changes with aging in Korean women and development of a new standard grading scale for hand aging.

BACKGROUND: Skin aging, particularly facial skin, has been actively studied. However, hand skin research is limited. METHODS: Aging symptoms of 100 hands of Korean women aged from 20s to 60s were measured by noninvasive and bioengineering methods. Standard grade images were produced. RESULTS: As people got older, skin wrinkles were getting worse and skin tone was uneven with the occurrence of structural flexion. For each symptom, a suitable standard photograph of the skin of the hand was chosen and a new grading scale was made. CONCLUSIONS: The new grading scale developed in the present study could be employed in studies to explore aging of hand skin as one of objective indicators.