Pendulum: a simple test to measure spasticity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2317-0190.v9i2a102364Keywords:
Muscle Spasticity, Muscle Tonus, Stroke, AgedAbstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the reliability of the pendulum test in assessing muscle tone and compare the data obtained from a healthy elderly group with a group of chronic stroke subjects of similar age. Twenty healthy elderly and 20 chronic stroke subjects were recruited on a volunteer basis from the community. The muscle tone was measured by the corrected relaxation index (CRI) obtained from the pendulum test. To assess the reliability of the CRI, data were obtained from both groups on two different days. T-tests were used to assess differences between groups and between affected and non-affected sides of the stroke group. The mean CRI value for the affected side was 0.65 (± 0.20) for day one and 0.66 (± 0.11) for day two. For the unaffected side, the mean CRI value was 1.03 (± 0.09) and 1.02 (± 0.11) for day one and two, respectively. Significant correlation coefficients between the two measures were obtained (r= 0.93, p = 0.000 and r= 0.70, p = 0.000) for the affected and unaffected sides, respectively. The results of the t-tests showed significant differences between the CRI values of the affected leg compared with the non-affected leg and the reference values of the elderly group. However, no significant differences were observed between the CRI values of the non-affected leg and the reference values. It can be concluded that the pendulum test presents the potential to be included as an efficient method of assessing muscle tone.
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