Affiliations: [a] Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Erasmus
MC-University Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands | [b] Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, Erasmus
MC-University Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Jetty van Meeteren, Erasmus
MC-University Medical Center Rotterdam, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine,
P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 104 633170; Fax:
+31 104 633843; E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: There is no consensus on the optimal isokinetic dynamometry
parameters to clinically assess shoulder disorders. Therefore, this study aimed
to establish which parameters are best able to discriminate between shoulder
patients and healthy subjects, focusing on peak torques and peak torque
ratios. Isokinetic dynamometric measurements of both shoulders were made in
20 healthy subjects and these data were compared with baseline measurements in
9 patients with shoulder disorders. The different outcome measures were
compared by testing for significant group differences between patients and
healthy subjects and by scoring how the patient data compared to the normal
range of values found in healthy subjects. Significant differences between patients and healthy subjects were
found for the peak torques, but not for the agonist-antagonist peak torque
ratios. In addition, there were significant differences for the dominant/non
dominant ratios of the peak torques but not for the dominant/non dominant
ratios of the peak torque ratios. The percentage of patients with a standard
deviation score outside the 90% normal distribution of healthy subjects was
largest (>78%) for the involved/uninvolved (I/U) ratio of the peak torques.
It was concluded that bilateral comparison of peak torques is the
most appropriate outcome parameter to distinguish patients from healthy
subjects.
Keywords: isokinetic dynamometry, shoulder, parameters, clinical practice
