Why do the thomas test

The moving arm is aligned with the lateral midline of the fibula, using the lateral malleolus as a reference point. Repeat this procedure with the opposite side. The measurement unit is degrees. Share: Facebook Twitter. We have over fitness tests listed, so it's not easy to choose the best one to use. You should consider the validity, reliability, costs and ease of use for each test. Use our testing guide to conducting, recording, and interpreting fitness tests. Any questions, please ask or search for your answer.

Corresponding author. Vigotsky: moc. Received May 24; Accepted Jul This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract The modified Thomas test was developed to assess the presence of hip flexion contracture and to measure hip extensibility. Keywords: Orthopedic testing, Orthopaedic testing, Hip mobility. Methods Participants Healthy participants were recruited from a student population via flyers placed around campus and presented to Kinesiology and Exercise and Wellness classes.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of participants. Sex n Age years Height m Body mass kg Male 11 Open in a separate window.

Figure 1. Hip extension calculations. Procedures The MTT was performed by having the participant hold his or her non-testing knee left to his or her chest, while letting the thigh and leg of the testing hip right hang freely Harvey, Results Twenty-nine healthy participants were recruited for this study Table 1.

Figure 2. Bland—Altman plot of true hip extension and the modified Thomas test. Table 2 Raw values of, and differences between, true hip extension and the MTT. Figure 3. Difference between the modified Thomas test and true hip extension versus pelvic tilt during the modified Thomas test.

Discussion Although the MTT is widely used in orthopedic and physiotherapy practice, its criterion reference validity has not previously been investigated. Conclusions The data presented in this study suggest that the MTT is not a valid measure of hip extension unless lumbopelvic movement is controlled for. Supplemental Information Supplemental Information 1 Dataset for modified Thomas test validity paper: Click here for additional data file.

Funding Statement The authors received no funding for this work. References Aalto et al. Effect of passive stretch on reproducibility of hip range of motion measurements. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Statistical methods for assessing agreement between two methods of clinical measurement. Carkeet Carkeet A. Exact parametric confidence intervals for Bland—Altman limits of agreement.

Optometry and Vision Science. Cejudo et al. Test—retest reliability of seven common clinical tests for assessing lower extremity muscle flexibility in futsal and handball players. Physical Therapy in Sport. Reliability of inclinometer and goniometric measurements of hip extension flexibility using the modified Thomas test. Physiotherapy Theory and Practice. Energy absorption of impacts during running at various stride lengths.

Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. Edwards et al. Effects of stride length and running mileage on a probabilistic stress fracture model. Normative and critical criteria for iliotibial band and iliopsoas muscle flexibility.

Journal of Athletic Training. Franz et al. Changes in the coordination of hip and pelvis kinematics with mode of locomotion. Plate 4: Showing compensated curve when limb is extended. Plate 6: Diagnostic method. Plate Improved diagnostic method. Mike Cadogan. Leave a Reply Cancel reply. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. In case of sale of your personal information, you may opt out by using the link Do not sell my personal information.

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These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. To improve the precision of the measurement, the modified Thomas test using digital photography is currently being suggested Even when compared with data from the previous research of Gabbe et al.

But, differences in testing procedure, scoring method, and sample size may explain the difference in the research results. Because the ALS method can be achieved by co-contraction of the local and global muscles and an increased amount of abdominal muscles activity, lumbo-pelvic motion was minimized, and this provided more stability 17 , This result has important implications for clinical and research measurement.

Lumbo-pelvic stabilization is one of the considerations for precise measurement and may help to minimize measurement error when evaluating hip flexor tightness using the modified Thomas test.

This study has several limitations. First, because of the small sample size of young and healthy subjects in this study, the generalizability of our results is limited. Thus, additional research is needed to examine the reliability for different age and pathology groups. Second, not all measurement procedures were standardized. Despite these limitations, the results of our study suggest that lumbo-pelvic stabilization was effective for increasing the reliability and for minimization of measurement errors in the modified Thomas test.

Further study is required for standardization of the lumbo-pelvic stabilization measurement procedure of the modified Thomas test. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. J Phys Ther Sci. Published online Feb Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. E-mail: moc. Received Jul 9; Accepted Sep 2. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract [Purpose] The purpose of this study was to examine the test-retest reliability of the modified Thomas test using lumbo-pelvic stabilization.