MCQ-Balance: a method to monitor patients with balance disorders and improve clinical interpretation of posturography

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MCQ-Balance: a method to monitor patients with balance disorders and improve clinical interpretation of posturography [PeerJ] https://t.co/01dDB5L0Uy
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Introduction

Materials & Methods

Participants

Instrumentation

Protocol

Variables

MCQ-Balance assessment method

Stage 1: Measure

  • Xdif: difference between the measures taken in two temporal points: pre-value (pre-session) and post-value (post-session) (Eq. (1)). Xdif=XpostXpre

  • MBD threshold: for this method, a threshold (numerical value) must be defined from which a change is considered relevant. In our case, we selected the minimal detectable change (MDC) (Eq. (2)). The implications of this election are explained in the discussion section. MDC=1.962SEM;SEM=SDpool1ICC

    Where the standard deviation (SDpool) is the pooled average between the standard deviation of the test and retest, ICC is the intraclass correlation coefficient (specifically, the calculated coefficient was ICC3, k (similar to ICC2.1) (Ruhe, Fejer & Walker, 2010); the statistical software used for the ICC calculations was the IBM SPSS statistics (IBM Corp, 2017) and the ICC results were classified according to Cicchetti (1994), who provided the following intervals to characterize the ICC inter-rater agreement measures; and SEM is the standard error of measurement. Following the exposed calculation procedure, ICC, SEM and MDC values were obtained in a previous test-retest study (De la Torre et al., 2020a; De la Torre et al., 2020b).

  • Short-term typical error (STTE): this represents the error/deviation in the subject’s repeated measurements in a short period for a sample of measurements instead of just one measurement per session, without any substantial change between them (as an intervention, for a long time between measurements, etc.) As proposed by Hopkins (2000) and Hopkins (2017), this input was obtained with a previous short-term reliability study of the balance test set; similar study to the calculation of variables for the MDC (De la Torre et al., 2020a; De la Torre et al., 2020b).

Stage 2: Classify

  • PoC: Probability of change for one unit (calculated in 2.4).

  • CQ: Quantification of the change that represents the dimensionless difference between the pre- and post-sessions (for one unit) calculated using Eq. (4), in which Xdif is divided by the maximum value of the pre- or post-session. If Xdif is very large (tending to infinity), CQ approaches 1:

CQ=XdifMax(Xpost;Xpre)
  • -2: high negative progression from Testn (30% MinScoreTestn >ScoreTestn).

  • -1: negative progression from Testn (30% MinScoreTestnScoreTestn <10%MinScoreTestn).

  • 0: no progression from Testn (10% MinScoreTestnScoreTestn ≤ 10%MaxScoreTestn).

  • +1: positive progression from Testn (10% MaxScoreTestn <ScoreTestn ≤ 30% MaxScoreTestn).

  • +2: high positive progression from Testn (30% MaxScoreTestn <ScoreTestn).

Stage 3: Qualify

  • RSEO: no BSS altered.

  • RSEC: ES altered. The balance depends on the VS and PS.

  • SSEO: PS altered. The balance depends on the VS and ES.

  • SSEC: ES and PS altered. The balance depends only on the VS.

  • LOS: no BSS altered. Unique dynamic postural balance test.

Comparison between the MCQ-Balance assessment and clinician judgment

Statistical analysis

Results

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Comparison between the MCQ-Balance assessment and clinician judgment

Discussion

Conclusions

Supplemental Information

Patients’ raw data.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.10916/supp-1

Additional Information and Declarations

Competing Interests

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Author Contributions

Juan De la Torre conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Javier Marin conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Marco Polo conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Eva M. Gómez-Trullén conceived and designed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Jose J. Marin conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, and approved the final draft.

Human Ethics

The following information was supplied relating to ethical approvals (i.e., approving body and any reference numbers):

The present study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Community of Aragon (CEICA) (January 16, 2019).

Data Availability

The following information was supplied regarding data availability:

Raw data are available in as a Supplemental File.

Funding

The project was co-financed by the Government of Aragon, the European Regional Development Fund, and the University of Zaragoza (Spain). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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