Clinical testing of an innovative tool for the assessment of biomechanical strategies: the Timed “Up and Go” Assessment of Biomechanical Strategies (TUG-ABS) for individuals with stroke.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the reliability and construct and criterion- related validities of the Timed “Up and Go” Assessment of Biomechanical Strategies (TUG-ABS), when used with subjects with hemiparesis due to stroke within clinical settings.

DESIGN/METHODS: Construct validity was investigated by the following methods: the known groups, convergence, discriminant analyses, and the opinions of clinical professionals, who used the TUG-ABS with subjects with stroke. The criterion-related validity was investigated by comparing the realtime and video observation scores. Inter-rater reliability was investigated by two independent examiners using both realtime and video observations.

RESULTS

The TUG-ABS differentiated people with stroke from healthy controls (p < 0.001), was correlated with the time spent to perform the TUG (rs = –0.85; p < 0.001), and correctly classified 98% of the subjects with stroke (p < 0.001). In addition, all of the clinicians who used the TUG-ABS in their clinical settings, provided positive evaluations. Agreement was also observed between real-time and video observations (0.27 ≤ kappa ≤ 0.85; p < 0.01). Furthermore, the TUG-ABS was reliable for both real-time (0.24 ≤ kappa ≤ 1.00; p < 0.05) and video observations (0.15 ≤ kappa ≤ 0.94; p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

The TUG-ABS demonstrated good construct and criterion-related validities, as well as reliability, when applied in subjects with stroke within clinical settings, which supported the theoretical assumptions employed for its development.