Article

We determined the number of days of step activity monitoring required to
establish stable measures of walking activity in adults with incomplete spinal
cord injury (iSCI). Eleven individuals with iSCI (mean age 49 +/- 14 years) wore
a StepWatch Activity Monitor during waking hours for 7 consecutive days. We used
generalizability theory to identify sources of variance in daily step counts and
determine the minimum number of days necessary to obtain a reliability
coefficient (G-coefficient) greater than or equal to 0.80. Average daily step
activity (DSA) was 1,281 +/- 1,594 steps. Participants and days accounted for
70.9% and 1.3% of total variance in DSA, respectively, while unidentifiable error
accounted for 27.8% of the total variance in DSA. A minimum of 2 days was
required to achieve a G-coefficient greater than or equal to 0.80. An acceptably
stable measure of walking activity in adults with iSCI can be obtained by
averaging step count values from any 2-day period in a week. Results from this
investigation should be useful in evaluating the effect of activity-based
programs designed to enhance locomotor function in persons with iSCI.

Langue : ANGLAIS