PNF and Movement

Korea Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation Association (대한고유수용성신경근촉진법학회)
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An Evaluation of the Reliability and Validity of the Automatic Pennation Angle Measuring Program

깃각 자동측정 프로그램의 신뢰도와 타당도 평가

  • Kim, Jong-Soon (Department of Physical Therapy, College of Health Sciences, Catholic University of Pusan)
  • 김종순 (부산가톨릭대학교 보건과학대학 물리치료학과)
  • Received : 2019.06.24
  • Accepted : 2019.07.10
  • Published : 2019.08.31
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Abstract

Purpose: Ultrasound imaging is commonly used to measure the pennation angle of human skeletal muscles in vivo. However, manual assessment of the pennation angle using ultrasound images is subjective and time-consuming and requires a high level of examiner skill. The architectural analysis of human skeletal muscles is thus challenging. Automated approaches using image processing techniques are therefore required to estimate the pennation angle in ultrasound images. The purpose of this study was thus to assess the intra-tester and inter-tester reliability and validity of the pennation angle using an automatic measurement program. Methods: Twenty-two healthy young adults (mean age = 22.55 years) with no medical history of neurological or musculoskeletal disorders voluntarily participated in this study. Ultrasound imaging was used to measure the pennation angle of the gastrocnemius muscle at rest. One examiner acquired images from all the participants. The intra-tester and inter-tester reliability were evaluated using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to estimate reliability. Validity was measured using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results: The intra-rater reliability was excellent for the automatic pennation angle measuring program and the manual pennation angle assessment method (ICC>0.95). The inter-rater reliability was also excellent for both methods (ICC>0.93). All the correlation coefficients for the automatic pennation angle measuring program and the manual pennation angle assessment method were 0.79, which indicated a significantly positive correlation (p<0.05). Conclusion: Pennation angle measurement using the automatic pennation angle measuring program showed acceptable reliability and validity. This study therefore demonstrated that the automatic measuring program was able to automatically measure the pennation angle of skeletal muscles using ultrasound images, and thus made it easy to investigate skeletal muscle architecture.

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References

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