title: Is it legitimate to characterize muscle strength using a limited number of measures?
abstract: The purpose of this systematic review was to examine the legitimacy of using a single measure or a small set of measures of strength to characterize an individual's overall strength. Briefly, the methods involved: (a) a search of electronic databases, article reference lists, and personal files to identify relevant literature; and (b) a summarizing of that literature. As a result of the searches, 25 relevant articles were identified. The articles reported correlation coefficients, Cronbach's alpha, and factor analysis. Together, these statistics suggest a tendency for different strength measures to be related. A close examination of the relationships, however, suggests that caution should be exercised in characterizing overall strength using a single measure such as grip strength. In conclusion, it may be legitimate to use one or several measures obtained from a single limb to characterize the strength of that limb but not the entire body. What this means practically is that the practitioner interested in characterizing strength of a limb can reduce test burden by testing a limited number of muscle actions of that limb.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA. richard.bohannon@uconn.edu
authors.forename: Richard W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Bohannon
mesh_terms: D002138:Calibration / Q000592:standards; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D035002:Lower Extremity; D008297:Male; D053580:Muscle Strength / Q000502:physiology*; D053581:Muscle Strength Dynamometer; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology*; D009142:Musculoskeletal Physiological Phenomena; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D034941:Upper Extremity