Material and Method: Forty first-time subacute stroke patients without severe cognitive, language, or motion impairment were administered the ARAT and BBT before and after participating in a 4-week rehabilitation program. Their scores were analyzed by Wilcoxon sign-rank testing and by Spearman’s rank correlation, standardized response mean, and scatter-plot analysis.

Results: The ARAT and the BBT scores have a high level of responsiveness to change and are highly correlated. The BBT has a floor effect compared with the ARAT while the ARAT has a small ceiling effect compared with the BBT.

Conclusion: The ARAT and the BBT scores have excellent concurrent validity and are highly responsive to change, indicating that the BBT can effectively assess UE function.

Keywords: Action research arm test, Box and block test, Stroke, Upper extremity function