Article

Objective: ( 1) To find the inter- rater and intra-rater reliability of raters using GaitMat II to measure tempo-spatial gait parameters of stroke patients. ( 2) To find if reliability is related to abnormality of footprint patterns. Design: A prospective agreement study. Setting: A movement analysis laboratory. Subjects: Nineteen adults who were at least six months after stroke and able to walk 4 metres with or without assistance participated as subjects in this study. There were five raters. Methods: Subjects completed at least two walks along GaitMat II. The raw footprint data were analysed independently by each of the five raters. Results: Mean intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for each rater within subject ranged from 0.8398 to 0.9318. However eight of the 17 parameters tested showed significant differences between raters ( p = 0.0029 to p< 0.0001). When the most inexperienced rater was excluded, differences between experienced raters ( n = 4) was found to be statistically insignificant for all parameters. The association of the mean score and standard deviation of experienced raters was significant for nine parameters ( r values 0.5087 to 0.9459), i.e., as walking pattern became more abnormal, variation in scoring between raters increased. Conclusions: GaitMat II may have acceptable inter- rater reliability if raters have experience of gait analysis but disagreement may increase when stroke patients exhibit more abnormal gait patterns.

Langue : ANGLAIS