Reliability of upright weight-bearing distribution measures obtained by computed baropodometry for participants with and without post-stroke hemiparesis

Background/Aims Measurements from force platforms and digital scales have been applied to classify weight-bearing distribution in post-stroke hemiparesis. However, an intermediate tool - computed baropodometry - is breaking new ground in this field of diagnosis, with a need to report its reliability. Intra-test and test/retest reliabilities of the percentage of total body weight borne by the predominantly used hemibody calculated from computed baropodometry in participants with and without chronic hemiparesis was investigated in this study. Methods A total of 40 participants were evaluated and combined for age and sex in two different groups. Repeated measures were taken to analyse differences among records obtained from averages during 5, 10 or 20 seconds (intra-test reliability) and between the test and 1-week retest (test/retest reliability) for both groups. The analysis of variance, intra-class correlation coefficient and data plotted by Bland-Altman method were administrated. Results The intra-test analysis did not show differences among records obtained from different time durations (5, 10 and 20 seconds). Excellent to moderate intra-class correlation coefficient values (0.794 to 0.644) between test and retest were observed in the hemiparesis group from the records obtained by short to the longer lasting time durations, while for control groups, intra-class correlation coefficient values (0.661 to 0.748) were classified as moderate. Conclusions Acceptable reliability was found for all participants. Moreover, improved repeatability was reported when the measures were obtained by shorter time periods for both groups.