Observing seated posture after stroke: a reliability study

Abstract

Encouraging patients to adopt 'reflex inhibiting' postures after a stroke has long been thought to enhance their recovery. However, the efficacy of this rehabilitative strategy has never been evaluated. The development of a simple, reliable means of recording information about resting posture is prerequisite to the design of such an evaluative study. This paper describes the preliminary findings of a study designed to test the reliability of such a method. Using a simple observational tool, two observers made simultaneous observations of each of 20 aspects of the posture of a sample of 13 seated stroke patients. Each patient was observed up to five times, such that a total of 50 pairs of observations were made for each aspect of posture. For 18 (90%) of the aspects of posture the coefficients of agreement were satisfactory. While further testing using other positions is required, the results suggest that the tool has the potential for use in future research.