Abstract
BackgroundA study was conducted to determine the reliability and minimal detectable change for a new composite measure of the vertical and medial-lateral mobility of the midfoot called the foot mobility magnitude.MethodsThree hundred and forty-five healthy participants volunteered to take part in the study. The change in dorsal arch height between weight bearing and non-weight bearing as well as the change in midfoot width between weight bearing and non-weight bearing were measured at 50% of total foot length and used to calculate the foot mobility magnitude. The reliability and minimal detectable change for the measurements were then determined based on the assessment of the measurements by three raters with different levels of clinical experience.ResultsThe change in dorsal arch height between weight bearing and non-weight bearing, midfoot width between weight bearing and non-weight bearing, and the foot mobility magnitude were shown to have high levels of intra-rater and inter-rater reliability. Normative data are provided for the left and right feet of both the female (n = 211) and male (n = 134) subjects.ConclusionWhile the measurements of navicular drop and drift have been used as a clinical method to assess both the vertical and medial-lateral mobility of the midfoot, poor to fair levels of inter-rater reliability have been reported. The results of the current study suggest that the foot mobility magnitude provides the clinician and researcher with a highly reliable measure of vertical and medial-lateral midfoot mobility.
Highlights
A study was conducted to determine the reliability and minimal detectable change for a new composite measure of the vertical and medial-lateral mobility of the midfoot called the foot mobility magnitude
Numerous techniques for the assessment of foot posture have been described in the literature including the arch index [1], the bony arch index [2], valgus index [3], longitudinal arch angle [4,5], and the arch height index [6]
The within-session and between-session Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and standard error of the measurements (SEM) values for all three raters are shown in Tables 1 and 2
Summary
A study was conducted to determine the reliability and minimal detectable change for a new composite measure of the vertical and medial-lateral mobility of the midfoot called the foot mobility magnitude. While the authors of these studies have described good to high levels of intra-rater and inter-rater reliability for these various foot posture assessment techniques, the cohorts used to establish normative values for these different methods have been less than 200 subjects. McPoil et al did publish normal values for the arch height index based on 850 healthy subjects [7] They reported high levels of intra-rater and inter-rater reliability, and validated the measurement using radiographs. These various measures of foot posture allow the clinician to categorize an individual's static foot posture, the major limitation for any technique that is used to classify arch height is that such a categorization does not take into account the mobility of the foot. As noted by Menz [8], "the quantity and quality of motion in the joints of the foot cannot be determined by observing arch height."
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