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

doi:10.1016/j.apmr.2006.10.002

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Volume 88, Issue 1, January 2007, Pages 32-36

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2006.10.002 Get rights and content

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.

Section snippets

Participants

Nine men and 4 women with COPD were recruited from a database of former pulmonary rehabilitation participants at a regional health service. Sample size estimates undertaken according to the method described by Walter et al¹⁸ indicated that 12 people would be appropriate if reliability coefficients were anticipated to be between 0.6 and 0.9, which is well within the range reported in previous investigations.10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16 People were excluded from the investigation if they had

Results

One man withdrew from the study because he was unable to complete the second testing session because of an unrelated illness. The characteristics of the remaining 12 participants are given in table 2. All but 1 participant had an extensive smoking history, and long-term oxygen therapy had been prescribed for 33% of participants. Cardiovascular problems were the most commonly reported comorbidities (n=7), followed by musculoskeletal conditions such as osteoarthritis (n=4) and osteoporosis (n=4).

Discussion

The protocol used for assessing isometric muscle strength in this study had good retest reliability, as evidenced by ICCs greater than or equal to .79. The correlation coefficients of the current study are similar to retest reliability coefficients reported in assessing the isometric strength of using hand-held dynamometers in other populations12, 15, 16 and not inconsistent with results reported with people with COPD using a Cybex dynamometer (ICC>.88).³ However, sole use of reliability

Conclusions

Hand-held dynamometry is a simple, portable, and inexpensive option for clinicians wanting to obtain measures of isometric muscle strength for people with COPD. The device showed good reliability coefficients and was suitable for measuring mean changes in muscle force generation for groups of people with COPD; therefore, it could appropriately be applied to monitoring changes in group programs. However, caution should be used when examining muscle strength for a person with COPD, because

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

Abstract

Objective

Design

Setting

Participants

Interventions

Main Outcome Measures

Results

Conclusions

Section snippets

Participants

Results

Discussion

Conclusions

Chest

Arch Phys Med Rehabil

Arch Phys Med Rehabil

Arch Phys Med Rehabil

Arch Phys Med Rehabil

Arch Phys Med Rehabil

Arch Phys Med Rehabil

Arch Phys Med Rehabil

Chest

Muscle weakness is related to utilization of health care resources in COPD patients

Eur Respir J

Test-retest reliability of isometric and isokinetic torque in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Physiother Can

Musculoskeletal assessment: joint range of motion and manual muscle strength

Measuring knee extensor muscle strength

Am J Phys Med Rehabil

Influence of method on estimates of normal knee extensor force among normal and post polio children

Phys Ther Rev

Normative values for isometric muscle force measurements obtained with hand-held dynamometers

Phys Ther

Make tests and break tests of elbow flexor muscle strength

Phys Ther

A comparison of make and break tests using a hand-held dynamometer and the Kin-Com

J Orthop Sports Phys Ther

Intrasession and intersession reliability of hand-held dynamometry measurements take on brain-damaged patients

Phys Ther

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