scispace - formally typeset
Journal ArticleDOI

A review of the properties and limitations of the Ashworth and modified Ashworth Scales as measures of spasticity

Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
The application of both scales would suggest that confusion exists on their characteristics and limitations as measures of spasticity, and there is a need to standardize methods to apply these scales in clinical practice and research.
Abstract
Background: The Ashworth Scale and the modified Ashworth Scale are the primary clinical measures of spasticity. A prerequisite for using any scale is a knowledge of its characteristics and limitations, as these will play a part in analysing and interpreting the data. Despite the current emphasis on treating spasticity, clinicians rarely measure it.Objectives: To determine the validity and the reliability of the Ashworth and modified Ashworth Scales.Study design: A theoretical analysis following a structured literature review (key words: Ashworth; Spasticity; Measurement) of 40 papers selected from the BIDS-EMBASE, First Search and Medline databases.Conclusions: The application of both scales would suggest that confusion exists on their characteristics and limitations as measures of spasticity. Resistance to passive movement is a complex measure that will be influenced by many factors, only one of which could be spasticity. The Ashworth Scale (AS) can be used as an ordinal level measure of resistance to pa...

read more

Citations
More filters
Book ChapterDOI

Neurophysiological basis and clinical applications of the H-reflex as an adjunct for evaluating response to intrathecal baclofen for spasticity

TL;DR: The accumulated knowledge suggests that H-reflex is a sensitive method for documenting altered spinal cord responsiveness in the presence of ITB delivery, and recommends using H- Reflex as an adjunct to clinical evaluation when judging the overall effectiveness ofITB administration.
Journal ArticleDOI

Quantitative Measurement of Poststroke Spasticity and Response to Treatment With Botulinum Toxin: A 2-Patient Case Report

TL;DR: The clinical measure of spasticity was not effective in consistently identifying the presence ofSpasticity and was ineffective in documenting the individuals’ responses to treatment, and the neurophysiological measure was able to identify when muscle activity levels had been reduced.
Journal ArticleDOI

Outcome measures in stroke.

TL;DR: 6 different measurement scales used to assess and measure outcomes of strokes are provided to serve as a baseline for the evaluation of therapeutic measures, but also for rehabilitation and health care planning.
Journal ArticleDOI

Contractures and involuntary muscle overactivity in severe brain injury

TL;DR: The presence of contractures was associated with lower involuntary muscle overactivity in terms of lower PIhand less frequent peaksh, indicating that contractures may be associated with reduced non-spastic positive features of the upper motor neurone syndrome in patients with severe brain damage.
References
More filters
Book

Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences

Sidney Siegel
TL;DR: This is the revision of the classic text in the field, adding two new chapters and thoroughly updating all others as discussed by the authors, and the original structure is retained, and the book continues to serve as a combined text/reference.
Book

An introduction to categorical data analysis

Alan Agresti
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a tour of categorical data analysis for Contingency Tables and Logit and Loglinear models for contingency tables, as well as generalized linear models for Matched Pairs.
Journal ArticleDOI

Interrater Reliability of a Modified Ashworth Scale of Muscle Spasticity

TL;DR: The relationship between the raters' judgments was significant and the reliability was good, and it is believed these results to be positive enough to encourage further trials of the modified Ashworth scale for grading spasticity.
Book

An Introduction to Medical Statistics

Martin Bland
TL;DR: The design of experiments, analysis of the means of small samples using the t-c Distribution, and selection of the statistical method for clinical measurement and the structure of human populations are reviewed.
Book

Introduction to multivariate analysis

TL;DR: In this article, the multivariate normal distribution is used for principal component analysis and multivariate analysis of covariance and related topics, as well as multi-dimensional scaling and cluster analysis.
Related Papers (5)