Article

Three dimensional measurements of gait is a widely used tool in clinical gait
analysis, and the evaluation of the reliability and reproducibility of the method
is a recurring topic in the literature. The reliability of gait curve
measurements is often assessed by extraction of single points from the gait
curves before applying traditional reliability measures for scalars. This
approach does, however, not explore the entire gait curves as continuous
functions of time. In order to assess agreement between gait curves measured by
different measurement methods, or measurers, we propose an extension of the
concept of limits of agreement (LoA) to curve data. The LoA represent the
estimated variation in the actual observations, which are then to be accompanied
by an evaluation of whether this observed variation is within clinically
acceptable limits. The generalization of the methodology from scalars to
continuous function, e.g. gait curves, can be done using functional data analysis
(FDA), a statistical methodology particularly developed for analyzing functional
data. The resulting functional limits of agreement (FLoA) are continuous
functions from 0 to 100% of the gait cycle, representing the difference in gait
curves as measured by different measurement methods. The FLoA are presented in
actual degrees for each joint and plane under study. The proposed methodology is
demonstrated on real data from an inter-rater repeatability study.
CI - Copyright (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS