The Erasmus MC modifications to the (revised) Nottingham Sensory Assessment: a reliable somatosensory assessment measure for patients with intracranial disorders.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the Erasmus MC modifications to the Nottingham Sensory Assessment (EmNSA).


METHODS
A consecutive sample of 18 inpatients, with a mean age of 57.7 years, diagnosed with an intracranial disorder and referred for physiotherapy.


METHODS
The inpatient neurology and neurosurgery wards of a university hospital.


METHODS
Through discussions between four experienced neurophysiotherapists, the testing procedures of the revised Nottingham Sensory Assessment were further standardized. Subsequently, the intra-rater and inter-rater reliabilities of the EmNSA were investigated.


RESULTS
The intra-rater reliability of the tactile sensations, sharp blunt discrimination and the proprioception items of the EmNSA were generally good to excellent for both raters with a range of weighted kappa coefficients between 0.58 and 1.00. Likewise the inter-rater reliabilities of these items were predominantly good to excellent with a range of weighted kappa coefficients between 0.46 and 1.00. An exception was the two-point discrimination that had a poor to good reliability, with the range for intra-rater reliability of 0.11-0.63 and for inter-rater reliability -0.10-0.66.


CONCLUSIONS
The EmNSA is a reliable screening tool to evaluate primary somatosensory impairments in neurological and neurosurgical inpatients with intracranial disorders. Further research is necessary to consolidate these results and establish the validity and responsiveness of the Erasmus MC modifications to the NSA.
Physiotherapy Department, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
F
F
Stolk-Hornsveld
J L
JL
Crow
E P
EP
Hendriks
R
R
van der Baan
B C
BC
Harmeling-van der Wel
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D020886:Somatosensory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology