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Correlation among the Visual Gait Assessment Scale, Edinburgh Visual Gait Scale and Observational Gait Scale in
Geruza P Bella1, Nádia B B Rodrigues, Paola J Valenciano
1Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil. geruzaperlatobella@gmail.com
Insights
The Visual Gait Assessment Scale (VGAS) and Edinburgh Visual Gait Scale (EVGS) show good agreement for assessing spastic diplegia cerebral palsy (CP) gait in children, unlike the Observational Gait Scale (OGS).
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Orthopedics
- Neurology
- Rehabilitation Medicine
Background:
- Gait disorders are prevalent in children with spastic diplegia cerebral palsy (CP).
- Instrumented gait analysis is crucial for quantifying intervention outcomes in CP.
- Objective assessment tools are needed to evaluate gait improvements.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the correlation between the Edinburgh Visual Gait Scale (EVGS), Visual Gait Assessment Scale (VGAS), and Observational Gait Scale (OGS).
- To identify the most reliable visual gait assessment tool for children with spastic diplegia CP.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional study involving 8 children with spastic diplegia CP (GMFCS Level I-II).
- Gait analysis performed using EVGS, VGAS, and OGS by three examiners.
- Data analyzed using Weighted Kappa scores to assess inter- and intra-rater reliability.
Main Results:
- Moderate to excellent intra-rater agreement (k=0.41-1.00) was observed between the scales.
- VGAS and EVGS demonstrated the highest agreement for classifying children's gait.
- OGS showed considerable disagreement when compared to VGAS and EVGS.
Conclusions:
- VGAS and EVGS are more suitable for assessing gait in children with spastic diplegia CP.
- OGS may be less reliable for this specific patient population.
- These findings support the use of VGAS and EVGS in clinical practice and research for CP gait.
Background:
Gait disorders are very common in children with spastic diplegia cerebral palsy (CP). In order to improve the CP children's gait and to quantify the outcomes of this intervention it becomes essential to perform an instrumented analysis before and after the intervention.
Objectives:
To analyze the correlation among the Edinburgh Visual Gait Scale (EVGS), the Visual Gait Assessment Scale (VGAS) and the Observational Gait Scale (OGS).
Methods:
Cross sectional study aiming to analyze the gait of 8 children with spastic diplegia CP with level I or II in the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) through the EVGS, VGAS and OGS scales performed by 3 examiners. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Weighted Kappa scores were used to analyze the data considering a significance level of 5%.
Results:
The intra-rater analyses showed a moderate to excellent agreement (k=0.41, 1.00) among the methods of the children's classification, being the comparison between VGAS and the EVGS scales presented the highest level of agreement, while the OGS scale presented a considerable disagreement in comparison with other scales. The inter-rater agreement showed to be predominantly high.
Conclusions:
The results provide evidence that the VGAS and the EVGS scales are more suitable for children's spastic diplegia CP gait assessment when compared to OGS.
