Measurement of passive ankle dorsiflexion: Procedure and reliability

The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable procedure to measure passive ankle dorsiflexion in the clinical setting. A known torque was applied to produce ankle dorsiflexion in a standardised testing position. Ankle angle was measured using skin surface markers and polaroid photography. The interrater reliability of this procedure was evaluated by having five testers each measure 15 subjects. It was found that the procedure was highly reliable; the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient for the combined group data was 0.97 and the percentage intertester agreement was 77 per cent. These results demonstrate that the measurement procedure has the potential to be a clinically useful means of evaluating the effect of physiotherapeutic intervention aimed at altering passive ankle dorsiflexion movement.