Reliability of Ultrasound Measures of the Transversus Abdominis: Effect of Task and Transducer Position

• DOI: 10.1016/j.pmrj.2012.11.002
• Publication Date: 2013-01-10T03:49:09Z
• Authors: Christian Larivière; Dany Gagnon; Eros De Oliveira; Sharon M. Henry; Hakim Mecheri; Jean‐Pierre Dumas
• Keywords: Intra-rater reliability; Supine position; Transversus abdominis; Abdominal muscles

Objective To assess the reliability of ultrasound (US) measures transversus abdominis (TrA) muscle in a sample subjects with and without specific chronic low back pain to test whether is enhanced by using different abdominal activation tasks, use foam cube for US transducer stabilization or averaging 3 on same image. Design Cross‐sectional repeated‐measures design. Setting Laboratory setting. Patients Fifteen 15 control subjects. Methods Subjects (n = 30) performed tasks supine position: (1) contralateral straight leg raise (SLR), (2) bilateral hook‐lying raising (HLR), (3) drawing‐in maneuver (ADIM) (control only). Two 7‐second videos right left wall (from rest contraction) were collected, cube. One 2 raters repeated testing 7 14 days later intrarater reliability. Main outcome measurements imaging muscles thickness. Results The TrA was recruited preferentially ADIM task compared automatic (SLR HLR). comparable among results being better than interrater results. image generally not effective increase Conclusions Although they are as preferential recruitment ADIM, SLR HLR showed used orientation pressure had limited effect