Investigation of the reliability of 4 different physical performance tests in patients with knee osteoarthritis

Objective: To examine the reliability of 4 different physical performance tests in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Method: 38 individuals diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis were included in the study. The patients included in the study were asked to perform 2-minute walking test, L-test, Step test and tandem stance tests twice. Their reliability has been examined using ICC (2,1). SEM and MDC95 values were determined. Results: The ICC value for the 2-minute walk test was 0.99 (0.97-0.99), SEM and MDC95 values were 5.46 meters and 15.13 meters, respectively; the ICC value for the L-test is 0.99 (0.96-.099), SEM and MDC95 values are 1.37 seconds and 3.79 seconds, respectively; ICC value for the step test was 0.97 (0.92-.097), SEM and MDC95 values were 0.46 repetitions and 1.27 repeats, respectively; tandem stance test ICC value for position 1 is 0.99, SEM and MDC95 values are 0.02 seconds and 0.05 seconds, respectively; for position 2, the ICC value is 0.98, SEM and MDC95 values are 0.03 seconds and 0.08 seconds, respectively; for position 3, the ICC value was 0.89, SEM and MDC95 values were 0.09 seconds and 0.24 seconds, respectively. Conclusion: Four different physical performance tests, whose reliability was examined in our study, were found to be reliable in the evaluation of patients with knee osteoarthritis. We recommend the use of these 4 tests as complementary outcome measures for functional evaluation in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Keywords: osteoarthritis, reliability, 2-minute walk test, L-test, step test, tandem stance test.