Intra and Inter-Rater Reliability of brief balance Evaluation system test in Patients with total Knee Arthroplasty Shah B Mital1, Ramalingam A Thangamani2, Dibyendunarayan D Bid3, KeniK Patel4, Krishna S Patel4, Kaushal A Patel4 1Assistant Professor, Sarvajanik College of Physiotherapy, Rampura, Surat, Gujarat, India 2Lecturer, Sarvajanik College of Physiotherapy, Rampura, Surat, Gujarat, India 3Senior Lecturer, Sarvajanik College of Physiotherapy, Rampura, Surat, Gujarat, India 4Physiotherapists, Sarvajanik College of Physiotherapy, Rampura, Surat, Gujarat, India Online published on 16 January, 2018. Abstract Background Following Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) surgery the patients may have functional deficits like reduced walking velocity and stride length and during the level walking, balance impairment can lead to falling risk in them. But currently, the balance evaluation system is not addressed in full depth with a more reliable tool in knee arthroplasty patients. Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability of Brief Balance Evaluation System Test (Brief-BESTest) scale as an assessment tool for balance on individuals with TKA. Methods An observational study design used with 30 individuals as participants who had undergone TKA surgery. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC, model two-way random, type absolute agreement) were calculated for examining the test-retest reliability. Results The Intra-rater reliability was 0.984(0.967–0.992); Inter-rater reliability was 0.987(0.973–0.994) and the Bland-Altman analysis of limits of agreement showed that the mean difference was 0.266±1.112 for the Brief-BESTest scale. Conclusion The Brief-BESTest is a reliable and time-saving tool to assess the balance in TKA patients and is more reliable compared to Mini-BESTest and BESTest. Top Keywords Total knee arthroplasty, Stability, Balance test. Top |