The Functional Movement Screen: Exploring Interrater Reliability between Raters in the Updated Version.

Area of Science:

• Sports Medicine
• Movement Science
• Clinical Biomechanics

Background:

• The Functional Movement Screen™ (FMS™) was updated with an ankle clearing test and modifications to the rotary stability pattern and scoring.
• This revised FMS™ aims to aid clinical decisions regarding the well-being of athletes and active adults.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the interrater reliability of the updated Functional Movement Screen™ (FMS™).
• To establish the FMS™'s suitability for use by various practitioners with their patients.

Main Methods:

• An observational laboratory study involving 45 healthy, active physical therapy students.
• Two licensed physical therapists administered the FMS™ while participants were video-recorded.
• Four second-year physical therapy students independently scored the FMS™ assessments from the videos using SPSS for interrater reliability analysis (ICC).

Main Results:

• The updated FMS™ demonstrated good to excellent interrater reliability.
• Rotary stability showed the highest reliability (ICC=0.96), while deep squat was the least reliable (ICC=0.78).
• Total FMS™ scores exhibited excellent reliability among raters (ICC=0.95).

Conclusions:

• The updated Functional Movement Screen™ (FMS™) possesses acceptable interrater reliability among minimally trained individuals.
• The updated FMS™ can be reliably employed for assessing future injury risk in athletes and active adults.