Range of shoulder motion in patients with adhesive capsulitis; intra-tester reproducibility is acceptable for group comparisons
PainSci summary of Tveitå 2008?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 at the bottom of the page, as often as possible. ★★★★☆?4-star ratings are for bigger/better studies and reviews published in more prestigious journals, with only quibbles. Ratings are a highly subjective opinion, and subject to revision at any time. If you think this paper has been incorrectly rated, please let me know.
Diagnostic reliability of range of shoulder motion in patients with frozen shoulder is “acceptable.”
original abstract
BACKGROUND: Measurements of range of motion play a key role in shoulder research. The purpose of this study is to investigate intra-observer reproducibility of measurements of active and passive range of motion in patients with adhesive capsulitis.
METHODS: The study was carried out in a population consisting of 32 patients with clinical signs of adhesive capsulitis. A specified measurement protocol was used, and range of motion in affected and non-affected shoulders was measured twice for each patient with a one-week interval.
RESULTS: For most of the investigated individual movements, test-retest differences in range of motion score of more than approximately 15 degrees are not likely to occur as a result of measurement error only. Point-estimates for the intraclass correlation coefficient ranged from 0.61 to 0.93.
CONCLUSION: Range of motion of patients with adhesive capsulitis can be measured with acceptable reproducibility in settings where groups are compared. Scores for individual patients should be interpreted with caution.
related content
- “Interrater reliability: the kappa statistic,” an article in Biochem Med (Zagreb), 2012.
- “The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data,” an article in Biometrics, 1977.
These two articles on PainScience.com cite Tveitå 2008 as a source:
- PS Is Diagnosis for Pain Problems Reliable? — Reliability science shows that health professionals can’t agree on many popular theories about why you’re in pain
- PS Frozen Shoulder Guide — A readable self-help manual for one the strangest of all common musculoskeletal problems, adhesive capsulitis
