Test-retest reliability of an Android application (Protractor) for range of motion evaluation
Abstract
Several tools are used by physical therapists to assess the range of motion (ROM) for joints of the upper and lower limbs. However, most of them are costly, time-consuming, and difficult to use. The current study aimed to determine the within-visit test-retest reliability of an android application (App) (Protractor) for elbow, wrist and ankle joints range of motion evaluation in outpatients with post fracture fixation. We evaluated the Android App (Protractor) in twenty-six patients with a mean age of 30 years, who had undergone operative treatment for fractures around the elbow, wrist, and ankle. These patients were recruited from the physiotherapy outpatient clinic at the Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University. Repeated measures were performed within the same session, focusing on motions in the sagittal plane for the elbow, wrist, and ankle joints. All measurements were conducted by the same investigator. Pearson correlation coefficient (r) and intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) were calculated. Within-visit test retest intra-rater reliability for elbow, ankle, and wrist joints, ROM was excellent (r and ICC≥0.99) except for wrist joint flexion ROM, it was weak and insignificant. The mean group difference of measures obtained in the first and second measurements was close to zero, with the exception of wrist joint flexion, which was -5 degrees, and ankle joint plantar flexion, which was +2 degrees. The Smartphone android App (Protractor) displayed reasonable within-visit reliability.
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References
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1. The Publication Service of the University of Murcia (the publisher) has the Publication Rights (Copyright) to the published papers and works, and favors and permits the reusing of the same under the license indicated in point 2.
© Servicio de Publicaciones, Universidad de Murcia, 2013
2. The papers and works are to be published in the digital edition of the Journal under the license Creative Commons Reconocimiento-No Comercial-Sin Obra Derivada 3.0 España (legal text). The copying, using, spreading, transmitting and publicly displaying of the papers, works or publication are permitted as long as: i) the authors and original sources (Journal, publisher and URL of the publication) are quoted; ii) it is not used for commercial benefit; iii) the existence and specifications of this users license are mentioned.
3. Conditions of Self-Archiving. It is permitted and encouraged that the authors spread electronically the pre-print (before printing) and/or post-print (the revised, evaluated and accepted) versions of their papers or works before their publication since this favors their circulation and early diffusion and therefore can help increase their citation and quotation, and also there reach through the academic community.