Article

Administration of the walking index for SCI (WISCI) II is
recommended to assess walking in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. Determining
the reliability and reproducibility of the WISCI II in acute SCI would be
invaluable.Objectives:The objective of this study is to assess the reliability
and reproducibility of the WISCI II in patients with traumatic, acute
SCI.Design:Test-retest analysis and calculation of reliability and smallest real
difference (SRD).Setting:SCI unit of a rehabilitation
hospital.Methods:Thirty-three patients, median age 44 years, median time since
onset of SCI 40 days. Level: 20 cervical, 8 thoracic, 5 lumbar; ASIA (American
Spinal Injury Association) impairment scale (AIS) grade: 32 D/1 C. Assessment of
maximum WISCI II levels by two trained, blinded raters to evaluate interrater
(IRR) and intrarater reliability.Results:The intrarater reliability was 0.999 for
therapists A and 0.979 for therapists B, for the maximum WISCI II level. The IRR
for the maximum WISCI II score was 0.996 on day 1 and 0.975 on day 2. The SRD for
the maximum WISCI II score was 1.147 for tetraplegics and 1.682 for paraplegics.
These results suggest that a change of two WISCI II levels could be considered
real.Conclusions:The WISCI II has high IRR and intrarater reliability and good
reproducibility in the acute and subacute phase when administered by trained
raters.

Langue : ANGLAIS