Abstract
Objectives: Hand-held dynamometers have been used to assess lower limb muscle strength. However, they have been reported to have various reliability and be dependent on the strength of the participant and that of the examiner. A new way to assess lower limb muscle strength using a portable load cell is being introduced in assessing knee extensors, hip abductors, hip external rotators and combined hip abductors and external rotators (‘clam’ position). The study aimed to identify the test-retest reliability, intra-rater reliability and validity of the new assessment method. Method: Twenty healthy controls took part in this study which took place in a physiology lab and performed four isometric strength tests on the portable dynamometer at two times. The first time the tests were also performed in an isokinetic dynamometer to assess validity. Results: The new assessment method was found have high reliability (knee extension ICC=0.99; hip abduction ICC=0.94; hip external rotation=0.97; ‘clam’=0.95) and high validity (knee extension ICC=0.99; hip abduction ICC=0.98; hip external rotation=0.90; ‘clam’=0.98) when compared to a gold standard isokinetic dynamometer. Conclusion: The new method is reliable and valid. It is more time-consuming than a hand-held dynamometer however it provides precise results without being dependent on the examiner.
Highlights
Non-portable dynamometers have been widely used for the strength assessment of the lower limb muscles [1,2,3]
Technical difficulties such as inability to transfer to the clinic, do not allow the use of nonportable dynamometers
For the above reasons a new method to assess muscle strength was designed using a load cell (PowerLab/16SP; ADInstruments, Castle Hill, Sydney, Australia) and two chains attached from both sides to assess lower limb muscle strength
Summary
Non-portable dynamometers have been widely used for the strength assessment of the lower limb muscles [1,2,3]. The literature showed that there are a number of reasons which discourage the use of hand-held dynamometers in the muscle assessment of the lower limb muscles. These were their low reliability [7], the absence of comparisons with other gold standard dynamometers and the question about the number of trials needed to decrease the systematic bias [8]. For the above reasons a new method to assess muscle strength was designed using a load cell (PowerLab/16SP; ADInstruments, Castle Hill, Sydney, Australia) and two chains attached from both sides to assess lower limb muscle strength
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