Journal of Spine

Validity and Reliability of Dual Digital Inclinometer in Measuring Thoracic Kyphosis in Women over 45 Years

Abstract

Fatemeh Sangtarash, Farideh Dehghan Manshadi, Alireza Sadeghi, Syed Mehdi Tabatabaee and Aliyar Modarres Gheysari

Objective: Accurate measurement of the Thoracic Kyphosis Angle (TKA) has great value for both evaluating patients and monitoring treatment progress. Dual Digital Inclinometer (DDI) has introduced as a non-invasive device that can measure the kyphosis angle. Because of lack of sufficient data, this study was aimed to determine the validity and the reliability of the DDI in measuring TKA in a group of women.

Materials and Methods: In this study, TKA was measured by DDI three times in 20 women aged 45-70 years. The first two measurements were taken with an hour apart in the same day, to assess the within -day and the third measurement was taken a day later to assess the between-day reliability. Finally, the validity of obtaining values of the TK with DDI compared with Cobb's angle as a gold standard.

Results: The ICC between the measurements from the Cobb’s angle and DDI method was 0.86. TKA measurements using DDI were shown to be reliable with high Inttraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) values, 0.92 and 0.87 for within- day and between- day respectively.

Conclusion: According to the present study, the DDI is a valid and reliable device for non-invasive and clinical measurement of TKA in women over 45 years.

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