Affiliations: [a] Faculty of Rehabilitation, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran | [b] Physical Therapy Department, Angelo State University, San Angelo, TX, USA
Correspondence:
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Address for correspondence: Dr. Noureddin Nakhostin Ansari, Faculty of Rehabilitation, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Enghelab Ave, Pitch-e-shemiran, Zip: 11498, P.O.Box: 11155-1683, Tehran, Iran. Fax: +98 21 77882009; E-mail: nakhostin@sina.tums.ac.ir
Abstract: Patients with neurological conditions may be affected by spasticity. The Modified Modified Ashworth Scale (MMAS) is a clinical tool used to measure spasticity. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the inter-rater reliability of the MMAS during the assessment of elbow flexor spasticity in adult patients with post-stroke hemiplegia. Twenty-one adult patients with stroke (5 women, 16 men) with a median age of 60 years (interquartile range, 47–68) were tested. Elbow flexors on the affected side were examined. Inter-rater reliability for two inexperienced raters was very good. The weighted Kappa value was 0.81 (Standard Error = 0.097, 95% CI: 0.62–1.00, p = 0.0002). The weighted percentage agreement was 97.4%. The agreement between raters occurred mostly on score 1 (38.1%) followed by score 0 (23.8%). The MMAS yielded reliable measurements between raters when used on patients post-stroke with elbow flexor spasticity.
