Citation

Meyer C, Corten K, Wesseling M, Peers K, Simon JP, Jonkers I, Desloovere K. PLoS One 2013; 8(11): e81149.

Affiliation

KU Leuven Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation Sciences, Leuven, Belgium ; UZ Pellenberg Orthopedic Department, University Hospitals Leuven, Pellenberg, Belgium.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0081149

PMID

24260550

PMCID

PMC3834260

Abstract

The burden of hip muscles weakness and its relation to other impairments has been well documented. It is therefore a pre-requisite to have a reliable method for clinical assessment of hip muscles function allowing the design and implementation of a proper strengthening program. Motor-driven dynamometry has been widely accepted as the gold-standard for lower limb muscle strength assessment but is mainly related to the knee joint. Studies focusing on the hip joint are less exhaustive and somewhat discrepant with regard to optimal participants position, consequently influencing outcome measures. Thus, we aimed to develop a standardized test setup for the assessment of hip muscles strength, i.e. flexors/extensors and abductors/adductors, with improved participant stability and to define its psychometric characteristics. Eighteen participants performed unilateral isokinetic and isometric contractions of the hip muscles in the sagittal and coronal plane at two separate occasions. Peak torque and normalized peak torque were measured for each contraction. Relative and absolute measures of reliability were calculated using the intraclass correlation coefficient and standard error of measurement, respectively. Results from this study revealed higher levels of between-day reliability of isokinetic/isometric hip abduction/flexion peak torque compared to existing literature. The least reliable measures were found for hip extension and adduction, which could be explained by a less efficient stabilization technique. Our study additionally provided a first set of reference normalized data which can be used in future research.

Language: en