The Community Balance and Mobility Scale: A Pilot Study Detecting Impairments in Military Service Members With Comorbid Mild TBI and Psychological Health Conditions.
To compare the capacity of the Community Balance and Mobility Scale (CB&M) to identify balance and mobility deficits in Service Members (SMs) with mild traumatic brain injury and comorbid psychological health conditions (mTBI/PH) to other commonly used balance assessments.



A clinical research institute that provides a 4-week, outpatient, interdisciplinary program for active-duty SMs with mTBI/PH.



A nonrandomized, cross-sectional design that compared multiple measures between 2 groups-active duty SMs with (n = 8) and without (n = 8) the dual diagnosis of mTBI/PH.



Gait speed, Activities-specific Balance Confidence scale (ABC), Functional Gait Assessment (FGA), and CB&M to assess functional balance among the community-dwelling, TBI population.



Across all measures, the mTBI/PH group performed significantly worse (P ≤ .01) with the exception of the FGA. The abilities of all objective measures to distinguish participants with mTBI/PH from healthy controls ranged from fair to excellent (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.66-0.94). However, the CB&M showed the largest group differences in effect size (d = 2.6) and had the highest discriminate ability (AUC = 0.98; sensitivity 100%; specificity 88%).



The CB&M appears to have higher sensitivity and specificity than other measures of balance in SMs with mTBI/PH. A higher cut score for the CB&M is needed for this population.
Physical Therapy, National Intrepid Center of Excellence, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (Ms Pape and Dr Kodosky), and Department of Research, National Intrepid Center of Excellence, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (Ms Williams and Dr Dretsch), Bethesda, Maryland.
Marcy M
MM
Pape
Kathy
K
Williams
Paula N
PN
Kodosky
Michael
M
Dretsch
D000328:Adult; D001924:Brain Concussion / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D005684:Gait; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008889:Military Personnel; D051346:Mobility Limitation; D010865:Pilot Projects; D004856:Postural Balance; D000072797:Walking Speed; D055815:Young Adult