Nicholas Burns Supervisor: Fiona Hamilton
Abstract
Producing accurate measurements of joint ranges of motion is important for reliable interpretation of research studies. For clinical validity, the aim of This investigation is to explore the intra-examiner and inter-examiner reliability in the measurement of cervical active range of motion using the Cervical Measurement System.
Methods: In the outpatient clinic at the London School of Osteopathy, non-symptomatic subjects from the student body (n8) with at least one year free of neck pain, injury or dizziness1 were randomly assessed in a test, re-test design study using a standardized measurement protocol. Measurements were taken in the order of:
left lateral flexbn, right lateral flexion, ftexion, extension, left rotation and right rotation, in accordance with manufacturers guidelines.
All subjects were non-symptomatic students (n = 8) from the London School of Osteopathy (LSQ). Subjects were selected randomly from the student body, subjects were deemed suitable for selection if they did not, presently suffer from neck pain or dizziness and had not experienced whiplash, neck trauma / injury, or dizziness in the past year.
Results: Reliability is expressed by the intra-examiner Correlation Coefficient, for lateral flexion was (0.8) and above, with a very variable 95% limits of agreement.
Left Lateral Flexion
The Correlation Coefficient was used to assess for Intra-examiner reliability, for examiner A, ri Left Lateral Flexion, the Correlation coefficient (r) = 0.7370, the one-tailed P value is 00185, considered significant. For intra-examiner B reliability, Correlation coefficient (r) = 0.8809, the one-tailed P value is 0.0019, considered very significant.
Inter-Examiner A-B reliability, the Correlation coefficient (r) = 0.7241, The one- tailed P value is 0.0211, considered significant.