Reliability of movement control tests on the cervical spine

BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders

Hannu Luomajoki³  André Meichtry³  Susanne Hannig²  Maja Patroncini¹ 

[1] Kantonsspital Winterthur, Brauerstrasse 15, 8401 Winterthur, Switzerland;Fetzer + Pfund. Physiotherapie. Bewegung. Training, Lindauerstrasse 112, 87439 Kempten, Germany;Zurich University of Applied Sciences, School of health professions, Institute of Physiotherapy, Technikumstrasse 70, 8400 Winterthur, Switzerland

关键词: Cervical spine;    Reliability;    Neck pain;    Movement control impairment;   

Others  :  1091358
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2474-15-402

 received in 2014-07-09, accepted in 2014-11-20,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Movement control impairment reduces active control of movement. Patients with this might form an important subgroup among patients with mechanical cervical pain. Diagnosis is based on the observation of active movement tests. Although widely used clinically, few studies have been performed to determine the reliability of a test battery. The aim of this study was to determine the inter-tester reliability of movement control impairment [MCI] tests on the cervical spine.

Methods

Forty-five subjects (31 patients with neck pain, 14 healthy controls) were videotaped while performing a standardized test battery consisting of 13 tests of active movement control. Using observation, two experienced physiotherapists independently rated test performances as correct or incorrect. One of them was blinded to all other patient information and both to each other. Kappa coefficients and 95% confidence intervals [CI] for inter-tester results were calculated.

Results

The kappa values for inter-tester reliability ranged in from 0.47-1.0 of the 13 tests, 2 demonstrated perfect reliability (k = 1.0), 4 excellent (k 0.81-0.99), 6 substantial (k 0.61-0.8) and 1 good (k 0.41-0.6).

Conclusions

The physiotherapists were able reliably rate the majority the tests in this series of motor control tasks. There have been studies performed describing the assessment and treatment of movement control impairment problems and low back pain. However, no study has involved the assessment of the cervical dysfunction subgroup. This study presents a reliable test battery, for clinical use, to perform more specific examination of this subgroup.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Patroncini et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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