Reliability of the Frontal Plane Knee Alignment Measurement Based on a Remote Protocol

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Kinesiology
• Sports Medicine

Background:

• Assessing movement quality is crucial for effective exercise prescription.
• Remote assessment methods are gaining importance in healthcare.
• Dynamic knee alignment is a key indicator of movement quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the reproducibility of a remote protocol for assessing dynamic knee alignment.
• To determine if patient-captured images can be reliably used for this assessment.

Main Methods:

• Thirteen women performed single-leg squats, filming themselves on two separate occasions.
• Three independent raters measured the knee frontal plane projection angle from the captured images.
• Reproducibility was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC).

Main Results:

• The protocol was successfully completed by 84.6% of participants.
• Intra-rater ICC values ranged from 0.880 to 0.999, indicating excellent agreement.
• Inter-rater ICC values ranged from 0.817 to 0.987, demonstrating high reliability between raters.

Conclusions:

• Patient-captured smartphone images provide a reproducible method for remote dynamic knee alignment assessment.
• This approach shows potential as a practical alternative for remote evaluations.
• The findings support the use of this technology in exercise prescription and movement analysis.