Reliability of Abdominal Muscle Stiffness Measured Using Elastography during Trunk Rehabilitation Exercises.
The aim of this study was to assess the intra session and inter rater reliability of shear modulus measured in abdominal muscles during two commonly used trunk stability exercises. Thirty healthy volunteers performed a series of abdominal hollow and abdominal brace tasks. Supersonic shear imaging was used to measure the shear modulus (considered an index of muscle tension) of the four anterior trunk muscles: obliquus externus abdominis, obliquus internus abdominis, transversus abdominis and rectus abdominis. Because of measurement artifacts, internus abdominis and transversus abdominis data were not analyzed for 36.7% and 26.7% of the participants, respectively. These participants exhibited thicker superficial fat layers than the others. For the remaining participants, fair to excellent intra session and inter rater reliability was observed with moderate to high intra class coefficients (0.45 0.97) and low to moderate standard error of measurement values (0.38 3.53 kPa) Reliability values were consistently greater for superficial than for deeper muscles.
Ultrasound in medicine biology