JSES International (Nov 2023)

Remote visual estimation of shoulder range of motion has generally high interobserver reliability but limited accuracy

  • Simon Hwang, MD,
  • Javier Ardebol, MD,
  • Kassem Ghayyad, MD,
  • Theresa Pak, DO,
  • Joao A. Bonadiman, MD,
  • Patrick J. Denard, MD,
  • Mariano E. Menendez, MD,
  • Michael H. Amini, MD,
  • Anup Shah, MD,
  • Andy Hartman, MD,
  • Anthony Wei, MD,
  • Brian Lee, MD,
  • Benjamin W. Sears, MD,
  • Christopher Sheu, MD,
  • Christopher R. Lehman, MD,
  • Daniel J. Solomon, MD,
  • David Weinstein, MD,
  • Dawson S. Brown, MD,
  • David Savin, MD,
  • Dave Huberty, MD,
  • Dan Guttmann, MD,
  • Dave Shukla, MD,
  • Edward Choung, MD,
  • Evan Lederman, MD,
  • Patrick J. Denard, MD,
  • Mariano E. Menendez, MD,
  • Elizabeth Watson, MD,
  • Erica M. Burns, MD,
  • Geoffrey Abrams, MD,
  • Gregory D. Gramstad, MD,
  • Samuel Harmsen, MD,
  • Hafiz Kassam, MD,
  • Jae You, MD,
  • Jason Kurian, MD,
  • Jason R. Saleh, MD,
  • Jonah Davies, MD,
  • Joseph W. Galvin, DO,
  • Raffy Mirzayan, MD,
  • Liang Zhou, MD,
  • Matthew Budge, MD,
  • Michael A. Stone, MD,
  • Matthew Nugent, MD,
  • Matthew Pifer, MD,
  • Ron Navarro, MD,
  • Niloofar Dehghan, MD,
  • Nathan Orvets, MD,
  • Reza Omid, MD,
  • Robert Orfaly, MD,
  • Peter Chalmers, MD,
  • Peters T. Otlans, MD, MPH,
  • Rachel M. Frank, MD,
  • Rudolf G. Hoellrich, MD,
  • Scott Humphrey, MD,
  • Scott Crow, MD,
  • Shanjean Lee, MD,
  • Richard Lee Stowell, MD,
  • Ekaterina Urch, MD,
  • William Paterson, MD,
  • John Costouros, MD,
  • Angela Passanise, DO,
  • Anita G. Rao, MD,
  • Armodios Hatzidakis, MD,
  • J Brad Butler, MD,
  • Cay Mierisch, MD,
  • Sara Jurek, MD,
  • Hilary Malcarney, MD,
  • Jason Hsu, MD,
  • Jeffrey Tuman, MD,
  • Jonathan Cheah, MD,
  • John Matthews, MD,
  • Kyong Min, MD,
  • Lauren Hansen, MD,
  • Julia Lee, MD,
  • Raymond Klug, MD,
  • Rafael Buerba, MD, MHS,
  • Timothy Crall, MD,
  • Todd Kim, MD,
  • Yassamin Hazrati, MD

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 6
pp. 2528 – 2533

Abstract

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Background: Surgeon visual estimation of shoulder range of motion (ROM) is commonplace in the outpatient office setting and routinely reported in clinical research, but the reliability and accuracy of this practice remain unclear. The purpose of this study is to establish the reliability and accuracy of remote visual estimation of shoulder ROM in healthy volunteers and symptomatic patients among a large group of shoulder surgeons. Our hypothesis is that remote visual estimation would be reliable and accurate compared with the digital goniometer method. Methods: Fifty shoulder surgeon members of the PacWest Shoulder and Elbow Society independently determined the active shoulder forward flexion (FF), internal rotation at 90° abduction (IR90), external rotation at 90° abduction, external rotation at the side , and maximal spinal level reached with internal rotation (IRspine) through visual estimation of video recordings taken from 10 healthy volunteers and 10 symptomatic patients. Variations in measurements were quantified using the interobserver reliability through calculation of the intraclass correlation coefficient. Accuracy was determined through comparison with digital goniometer measurements obtained with an on-screen protractor application using Bland–Altman mean differences and 95% limits of agreement. Results: The interobserver reliability among examiners showed moderate to excellent correlation, with intraclass correlation coefficient ranging from 0.768 to 0.928 for the healthy volunteers and 0.739 to 0.878 for the symptomatic patients. Accuracy was limited, with upper limits of agreement exceeding the established minimal clinically important differences (MCIDs) for FF (20° vs. MCID of 14°) and IR90 (25° vs. 18°) in the healthy volunteers and for FF (33° vs. 16°), external rotation at 90° abduction (21° vs. 18°), and IR90 (31° vs. 20°) in the symptomatic patients. Conclusion: Despite generally high intersurgeon reliability in the visual estimation of shoulder ROM, there was questionable accuracy when compared to digital goniometer measurements,with measurement errors often exceeding established MCID values. Given the potential implications for the clinical response to treatment and the significance of research findings, the adoption of validated instruments to measure ROM and the standardization of examination procedures should be considered.

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