Proposal of an Alternative to the AMA Guidelines for the Evaluation of the Cervical ROM

摘要

Thecervicalspineisoneofthemostfrequentlyinjuredjointsinacaraccident. Referencesforthe range of motion (ROM) that should be expected in a person are needed to stage the injuries.The two main objectives of this paper are to clinically validate a measuring device for the cervicalspine, and to assess if the use of different ROM reference values will render different results from theAmerican Medical Association (AMA) ROM guidelines. The present study is divided into 2 phases,a validation phase with 55 subjects and a case-control phase with 80 subjects. A BTS (BioengineeringTechnology and System) system and the EBI-5 (estudio biomec á nico integral) system were usedfor the present investigation. The intraclass correlation agreement value between both measuringdevices is considered very good with a Cronbach alpha up to 0.9 in every dimension. Correlations(r) between variables are very high, not showing any values lower than 0.887. All comparisonsbetween using AMA ROM guidelines or normative values presented significant differences (p < 0.05).The EBI-5 system has exhibited good accuracy being paired to a photogrammetric system. The use ofguidelines adjusted to age constitute an alternative to the use of the AMA cervical ROM guidelines.Professionals should use age-normalized guidelines as an alternative to the AMA guidelines.