Introduction: Quantifying muscle strength is critical in clinical and research settings. A rapid and objective method is ideal. The primary objective of this study was to examine the reliability of a novel device, the rapid objective quantification- tibialis anterior (ROQ-TA), which quantifies the dorsiflexion force of the tibialis anterior, and to assess its validity against isokinetic dynamometry (IKD).
Methods: Ankle dorsiflexion of 20 healthy subjects was assessed by 3 modalities, ROQ-TA, manual muscle testing, and isokinetic dynamometry, over 2 testing sessions.
Results: The intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC(2,1) ] for reliability was 0.872 (0.677-0.949) for the ROQ-TA and 0.892 (0.728-0.957) for IKD. For validity, the ICC(2,1) values for the ROQ-TA and IKD were in good agreement, with 0.672 (0.17-0.87) in the first testing session and 0.769 (0.42-0.91) in the second session.
Discussion: The ROQ-TA is a valid and reliable device to test ankle dorsiflexion force in a healthy population. Muscle Nerve, 2018.
Keywords: dynamometry; muscle strength; objective; reliability; tibialis anterior; validity.
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