Recent injury had no effect on FMS scores
Two articles on PainSci cite Schneiders 2011: 1. Your Back Is Not Out of Alignment 2. The Functional Movement Screen (FMS)
PainSci commentary on Schneiders 2011: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.
According to the authors of this study, the Functional Movement Screen™ (FMS) is “based on the assumption that identifiable biomechanical deficits in fundamental movement patterns have the potential to limit performance and render the athlete susceptible to injury.” However, this small, high-quality experiment could not even detect a difference in test results in people who had actually been injured recently: the results “demonstrated no significant differences on the composite score between individuals who had an injury during the 6 last months and for those who had not.”
On the bright side, this study did confirm that the FMS testing is reliable (inter-rater reliability): different professionals get almost exactly the same results. It also produced good baseline test results for average active people, which is an important first step in helping professionals (and future researchers) start to understand the meaning of FMS results — if any.
For more detailed analysis of this paper, see The Functional Movement Screen (FMS).
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
The Functional Movement Screen(TM) (FMS(TM)) is a screening instrument which evaluates selective fundamental movement patterns to determine potential injury risk. However, despite its global use, there are currently no normative values available for the FMS(TM).
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Exercise and education versus saline injections for knee osteoarthritis: a randomised controlled equivalence trial. Bandak 2022 Ann Rheum Dis.
- Association of Lumbar MRI Findings with Current and Future Back Pain in a Population-based Cohort Study. Kasch 2022 Spine (Phila Pa 1976).
- A double-blinded randomised controlled study of the value of sequential intravenous and oral magnesium therapy in patients with chronic low back pain with a neuropathic component. Yousef 2013 Anaesthesia.
- Is Neck Posture Subgroup in Late Adolescence a Risk Factor for Persistent Neck Pain in Young Adults? A Prospective Study. Richards 2021 Phys Ther.
- Sudden amnesia resulting in pain relief: the relationship between memory and pain. Choi 2007 Pain.