Correlation Between Patient-Reported and Clinician-Measured Shoulder Range of Motion in Patients Undergoing Shoulder...

Area of Science:

• Orthopedics
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Digital Health

Background:

• Growing interest in remote patient monitoring for clinical and research applications.
• Need for validated methods to assess shoulder range of motion (ROM) outside of in-person visits.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the correlation between patient-reported and clinician-measured (CM) shoulder ROM.
• To assess the reliability of patient-reported outcomes for shoulder mobility.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective cohort study of 13,842 patient visits over 16 years.
• Collected patient-reported and CM shoulder ROM (elevation, abduction, internal rotation) using a picture-based survey and direct measurement.
• Utilized Spearman correlation analysis to compare ROM measures.

Main Results:

• Strong correlations observed between patient-reported and CM elevation (r=0.70) and internal rotation (r=0.66).
• Moderate correlation found between patient-reported and CM abduction (r=0.59).
• Arthroplasty subgroup showed strong correlations across all three ROM measures.

Conclusions:

• Patient-reported shoulder ROM is a reliable proxy for clinician measurements, particularly for elevation and internal rotation.
• Remote assessment of shoulder mobility is feasible, reducing the need for in-person evaluations.
• Findings support the integration of patient-reported outcome measures in remote orthopedic care.