High level of agreement for low back pain assessments conducted face-to-face, via telerehab
TUESDAY, May 28 (HealthDay News) -- A telerehabilitation system may be useful for evaluating chronic low back pain, according to a study published in the May 15 issue of Spine.
Fuensanta Palacín-Marín, P.T., from the University of Granada in Spain, and colleagues assessed the level of agreement between chronic low back pain assessments obtained via telerehabilitation and those obtained by face-to-face methods. Participants included 15 individuals (mean age, 37 years) who attended a session for a clinical interview followed by two assessments: face-to-face and real-time online telerehabilitation, the order of which was randomly selected.
The researchers found that, for seven of the nine outcome measures, the α reliability was more than 0.80 between face-to-face and telerehabilitation evaluations. The lowest reliability was seen for lateral flexion range of motion (α = 0.75). Inter- and intrarater interclass coefficients were very good (0.92 to 0.96).
"In conclusion, the findings of our pilot study suggest that this telerehabilitation system may be useful to assess individuals with chronic LBP," the authors write. "Further studies on this promising technique are warranted in larger samples, focusing on populations in which face-to-face evaluations are not usually feasible."
Abstract
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