When this score may help
This score may help if you have brain fog plus loose or painful joints, repeated injuries, fatigue, or poor body-position sense. The same goes for gut or bladder problems, headaches, poor sleep, and symptoms that worsen when standing.
Joint findings
It records how far key joints bend
The 0 to 9 score puts the same joint movements in one record.
Brain fog link
Other symptoms show whether it matters
Pain, poor sleep, symptoms when standing, gut flares, migraine, and fatigue can all make thinking harder. The score helps show whether loose joints need a full review.
Next exam
The next exam checks what the score misses
The next step may be a wider joint exam, the five-question history, a standing pulse and blood pressure test, physical therapy, or checks for another cause.
A high score doesn't diagnose hEDS, and a low score doesn't rule it out. hEDS and HSD need a history, an exam, symptoms, and checks for other causes.
Save this test
Save each point with your symptoms
Keep the score, past flexibility, pain, loose joints, and symptoms in one place for the full exam.
Add which cutoff the clinician used and what they want to check next.
How age, growth, and past injuries change the score
Age, growth, sex, past injuries, and current pain can change the score. Save those details with it.
Children before puberty
Children are often more flexible. From age 5 until the body is mature, the child framework uses 6 or more as a sign of widespread joint looseness before puberty.
Teens and adults through age 50
A score of 5 or more is a common positive screen.
Adults over 50
The common cutoff is 4 or more because joints often get stiffer with age. Past flexibility still matters when injury, pain, surgery, or stiffness has lowered the score.
Women, pregnancy, postpartum, and hormones
Joint symptoms can change during pregnancy, after birth, across the menstrual cycle, and around menopause. Mention any change in loose joints, pain, pelvic problems, dizziness, fatigue, or sleep.
Men and overlooked hypermobility
A low score can still matter if you have repeated sprains, a shoulder or kneecap that slips, long-term pain, poor body-position sense, or a family history. Tell the clinician even if you aren't very flexible now.
Athletes, dancers, musicians, and manual workers
Training, repeated strain, injury, and stiff muscles that guard a joint can change the score. Mention your work or sport, old injuries, current pain, and joints that feel loose.
How to do the test without forcing joints
Count a point only when the joint bends easily. Stop if it hurts, feels loose, causes numbness or tingling, or feels as if it may slip out.
Write down each point: left and right little finger, thumb, elbow, knee, plus the forward bend. The total alone isn't enough.
Tell the clinician if age, pain, injury, surgery, strong muscles, pregnancy, or the time after birth has made you stiffer. A five-question history may help when your current score is low.
Children need an age-based review. Before puberty, the 2023 child framework uses a higher cutoff and doesn't diagnose hEDS.
Score the nine points gently
Give one point for each little finger that bends back past 90 degrees. Give one point for each thumb that touches the forearm and each elbow or knee that bends back more than 10 degrees. Give one point if you can put both palms on the floor with your knees straight.
Use the age-based cutoff
The common cutoffs are 6 or more before puberty, 5 or more from puberty through age 50, and 4 or more after age 50. If you're one point below the cutoff, a clinician may use a five-question history.
Pair the score with symptoms
What your Beighton score means
Read the total with your age, current pain, past flexibility, and symptoms. A child, a 30-year-old, and an older adult use different cutoffs.
Below cutoff
Below the age-based cutoff and no strong history of childhood flexibility
This short test didn't show widespread joint looseness. Tell the clinician about loose joints in other places, past flexibility, injuries, pain, sleep problems, or symptoms that worsen when you stand.
Borderline or historical
One point below the age-based cutoff, or a low score now but clear past flexibility
Ask about the five-question history and a wider joint exam. A clinician who knows HSD and hEDS may need to check joints that this score misses.
At or above cutoff
At or above the age-aware cutoff, especially with pain, instability, repeated injuries, fatigue, dysautonomia, gut or bladder symptoms, tissue signs, or family history
Ask for a full hypermobility review.
The score doesn't test every joint
Shoulders, hips, ankles, toes, jaw, neck, and local instability can matter even when the Beighton score is low. Save which joints cause real-life trouble.
See research details
These details explain the age cutoffs and the joints this test misses.
The common cutoffs are 6 or more before puberty, 5 or more from puberty through age 50, and 4 or more after age 50. With the score, save your age and whether you've reached puberty.
If your score is one point below the cutoff for your age, the clinician may use a five-question history to check for past widespread flexibility.
HSD needs a history, physical exam, and checks for other causes. hEDS uses wider 2017 rules.
The 2023 child framework runs from age 5 until the body is mature. It uses a cutoff of 6 or more before puberty. Any painful or loose joint still needs an exam, even if this test doesn't score it.
If symptoms are in the shoulders, hips, ankles, feet, jaw, spine, arms, or legs, the clinician may need to examine those areas too.
What to do before the appointment
Use the score to prepare for a full exam. Do not stretch harder to raise it.
Put your joint history together
Write down each item's score, your age, and how flexible you were as a child. Add clumsiness, poor body-position sense, and activities that trigger symptoms.
Notice what happens before brain fog
Track whether fog gets worse with pain, poor sleep, standing, exercise, gut problems, headaches, or a joint flare. This may point to a standing test, sleep review, migraine care, pain care, or another check.
Ask how to protect loose joints
Ask about a clinician or physical therapist who knows hypermobility. They can help with strength, joint safety, body-position sense, pacing, and injury prevention. Do not force deep stretches or choose braces on your own.
Stop if a joint hurts, feels as if it may slip out, or causes numbness or tingling. Get urgent help for a joint that won't go back in, or for sudden severe nerve or stroke-like symptoms.
What to save
Keep these together
- Total Beighton score and each item that scored a point.
- Age and which cutoff was used.
- Past flexibility, childhood splits or contortion, past dislocations, and sports or dance history.
- Pain, instability, partial or full dislocations, sprains, soft-tissue injuries, and joints that feel unsafe.
- Fatigue, dizziness when upright, gut symptoms, pelvic or bladder symptoms, headaches, sleep disruption, and brain fog timing.
- Skin or tissue signs, hernias, stretch marks, unusual scarring, and family history.
- Whether a clinician confirmed the exam or used the 5-part questionnaire.
Question for the visit
“Should this score lead to a wider joint exam, the five-question history, an HSD or hEDS review, a standing pulse and blood pressure test, physical therapy, or checks for another condition?”
Sources for Beighton Score
Beighton method, cutoffs, five-question history, and joints the score misses.
2023 pediatric joint-hypermobility framework and child cutoff.
HSD diagnosis, symptom burden, and exclusion boundaries.
Primary-care review of hEDS and HSD evaluation, Beighton use, historical questionnaire, and differential diagnosis.
Pediatric joint-hypermobility framework and narrative review.
Measurement properties of clinical methods for generalized joint hypermobility.
Beighton score validity for generalized hypermobility in children.
Self-reported line drawings for modified Beighton assessment.
Upper-limb hypermobility assessment beyond the Beighton items.
See each claim's sources
procedure
The Beighton Score is a 9-point assessment using fifth fingers, thumbs, elbows, knees, and forward bend.interpretation
Common positive thresholds are 6 or more before puberty, 5 or more from puberty through age 50, and 4 or more after age 50.limitation
A Beighton score is not enough by itself to diagnose hEDS or HSD; clinical history, physical exam, symptom burden, and exclusion of other conditions matter.context
When the current Beighton score is one point below the age-aware cutoff, clinical guidance uses a 5-part historical questionnaire to assess prior generalized hypermobility.context
The 2023 pediatric joint-hypermobility framework applies from age 5 through biological maturity and does not use adult hEDS diagnosis for prepubescent children.limitation
Beighton scoring does not cover every symptomatic joint, so clinicians may need broader joint assessment when shoulders, hips, ankles, feet, jaw, or other areas are the main issue.