Reliability of the Clinical Measurement of Joint Motion and Muscle Length in the Upper and Lower Extremities of Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT

Reliability of joint motion and muscle length measurement in children with cerebral palsy was examined. Twenty-one studies of intraobserver and/or interobserver reliability were reviewed: joint motion of upper extremities in four and lower extremities in 13; muscle length of upper extremities in one and lower extremities in 15. Intraclass correlation coefficients for goniometric interobserver reliability varied widely for joint motion (range 0.38–0.92) and muscle length (range 0.20–0.95). Inclusion of an error measurement to provide clinicians with a value indicating true change was limited. Further research is required to determine intraobserver and interobserver reliability for these important pediatric clinical measurements.

KEYWORDS:

• Cerebral palsy
• joint motion
• muscle length
• pediatrics
• reliability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17518423.2024.2331459

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.