Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Volume 88, Issue 1 , Pages 32-36, January 2007

Measuring Muscle Strength for People With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Retest Reliability of Hand-Held Dynamometry

  • Simone D. O’Shea, PT

      Affiliations

    • Physiotherapy Department, Wodonga Regional Health Service, Wodonga, Australia
    • Musculoskeletal Research Centre, School of Physiotherapy, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia
  • ,
  • Nicholas F. Taylor, PhD, PT

      Affiliations

    • Musculoskeletal Research Centre, School of Physiotherapy, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia
    • Corresponding Author InformationReprint requests to Nicholas F. Taylor, PhD, PT, School of Physiotherapy, La Trobe University, Victoria 3086, Australia.
  • ,
  • Jennifer D. Paratz, PhD, PT

      Affiliations

    • School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

Abstract 

O’Shea SD, Taylor NF, Paratz JD. Measuring muscle strength for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: retest reliability of hand-held dynamometry.

Objective

To evaluate the retest reliability and quantify the degree of measurement error when measuring isometric muscle strength with a hand-held dynamometer for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Design

Retest reliability of hand-held dynamometry for 4 muscle groups was assessed on 2 occasions separated by a 2-week interval.

Setting

Community rehabilitation center.

Participants

Eight men and 4 women (mean age ± standard deviation, 71.4±10.3y) with moderately severe COPD (percentage of predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 second, 41.5%±17.7%).

Interventions

Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures

Muscle strength (in kilograms). Statistical analysis was conducted by calculating intraclass correlation coefficients and 95% confidence intervals for both group and individual scores.

Results

All reliability coefficients were greater than .79. Muscle strength would need to increase by between 4% and 18% in groups of people with COPD and between 34% and 58% in a person with COPD to be 95% confident of detecting real changes.

Conclusions

Hand-held dynamometry is suitable for monitoring change in muscle strength and testing hypotheses for groups of people with COPD. However, hand-held dynamometry is not likely to detect changes in muscle strength for a person with COPD.

Key Words: Muscles, Pulmonary disease, chronic obstructive, Rehabilitation, Reliability and validity

 

 No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the author(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.

PII: S0003-9993(06)01370-0

doi:10.1016/j.apmr.2006.10.002

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Volume 88, Issue 1 , Pages 32-36, January 2007