Abstract
Background: Spine height is related to disc hydration and activity. We aimed to establish inter- and intra-tester reliability for spine height measurements using a commercially available stadiometer that can be utilized in clinical settings. Methods: Twenty-nine healthy men and women (mean age = 29 ± 3.2 years) volunteered to participate. Each subject was seated in the stadiometer for 10 minutes with a 4.5 kg weight placed on each shoulder. The load was removed and spine height was measured every minute for five minutes by two different testers. Measurements were repeated twice more by one tester. Results: The means of the standard deviations were smaller than the mean differences, suggesting low variability and good reliability. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.99 for both testing sequences. Conclusions: This is the first study to establish the inter-tester and intra-tester reliability of measuring spinal height using a commercially available clinic based stadiometer protoco
Highlights
The intervertebral disc controls spine segmental movements, accept loads and transmit forces during functional activities [1]
Eklund and Corlett [3] were the first to report that measures of changes in spinal height were representative of changes in intervertebral disc height [3]
This study demonstrated that there is repeatability of spine height measurements between subjects on two different days
Summary
The intervertebral disc controls spine segmental movements, accept loads and transmit forces during functional activities [1]. Exercise activities have been shown to influence disc volume and spinal height and effects the disc’s ability to distribute loads [5,6,7,8]. Numerous investigators have used stadiometric measurements to examine spinal height changes Some of these studies have been designed to examine the reliability of custom laboratory based stadiometer protocols. The authors found that there was an appreciable amount of measurement variability within subjects over repeated exposures to identical conditions on different days They tested the consistency of the stadiometer measurements using two different methods. The second method asked subjects to remain in the stadiometer apparatus for the 10 trials “staying-in” method (Range of SD = 0.42mm to 0.66mm). We aimed to establish inter- and intra-tester reliability for spine height measurements using a commercially available stadiometer that can be utilized in clinical settings
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