Reliability of the timed 10-metre walk test during inpatient rehabilitation in ambulatory adults with traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the test-re-test reliability of the timed 10-metre walk test (10MWT) among adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI) enrolled in inpatient rehabilitation.

DESIGN

Prospective reliability study using a correlational design.

SETTING

Inpatient rehabilitation unit of a rehabilitation hospital.

PARTICIPANTS

Twenty-three consecutive adults with acute TBI, mean age = 35.87, SD = 14.2 years (range = 18-64 years). This study tested 22 males and one female, who were 15.6 (SD = 9.1) days in inpatient rehabilitation at time of gait testing.

METHOD

Repeated, timed 10-metre gait test within a 1-hour testing period with six trials at self-selected pace (SSP) and six trials at fastest pace (FP), recorded to the nearest 1/10 second with a hand-held stopwatch.

RESULT

Gait speed measurements for SSP and FP were shown to have excellent test-re-test reliability (Intra Class Correlation coefficient = 0.964 and 0.961, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

These results add to the literature that the timed 10MWT is a reliable measure of gait velocity in adults with acute TBI for both FP and SSP.