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. 2023 Jan 28;23(3):1448.
doi: 10.3390/s23031448.

Reliability of a Wearable Motion Tracking System for the Clinical Evaluation of a Dynamic Cervical Spine Function

Hamed Hani  1   2 , Reid Souchereau  1   2 , Anas Kachlan  2 , Jonathan Dufour  1   2 , Alexander Aurand  1   2 , Prasath Mageswaran  1   2 , Madison Hyer  3 , William Marras  1   2
Affiliations

Reliability of a Wearable Motion Tracking System for the Clinical Evaluation of a Dynamic Cervical Spine Function

Hamed Hani et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Neck pain is a common cause of disability worldwide. Lack of objective tools to quantify an individual's functional disability results in the widespread use of subjective assessments to measure the limitations in spine function and the response to interventions. This study assessed the reliability of the quantifying neck function using a wearable cervical motion tracking system. Three novice raters recorded the neck motion assessments on 20 volunteers using the device. Kinematic features from the signals in all three anatomical planes were extracted and used as inputs to repeated measures and mixed-effects regression models to calculate the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Cervical spine-specific kinematic features indicated good and excellent inter-rater and intra-rater reliability for the most part. For intra-rater reliability, the ICC values varied from 0.85 to 0.95, and for inter-rater reliability, they ranged from 0.7 to 0.89. Overall, velocity measures proved to be more reliable compared to other kinematic features. This technique is a trustworthy tool for evaluating neck function objectively. This study showed the potential for cervical spine-specific kinematic measurements to deliver repeatable and reliable metrics to evaluate clinical performance at any time points.

Keywords: inter-rater; intra-rater; musculoskeletal disorder; neck function; reliability; wearables.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure A1
Figure A1
Instructions provided for participants to perform motion evaluations in each plane. (a) Axial plane (b) Lateral plane (c) CCW sagittal plane (d) CW sagittal plane (e) Sagittal plane.
Figure A2
Figure A2
Samples of signals collected with the device in the three anatomical plane (Axial in blue, Lateral in purple, Sagittal in orange) (a) Signals in a flexibility trial. (b) Signals in a motion trial.
Figure 1
Figure 1
IMU sensors’ configuration for cervical spine motion assessment.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Axial plane inter-rater vs. intra-rater reliability. Regions with poor, moderate, good, and excellent reliability are shown, respectively, in red, yellow, light green, and dark green. Circles, triangles, and squares are used to represent measures extracted from flexibility, velocity, and acceleration signals, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Lateral plane inter-rater vs. intra-rater reliability. Regions with poor, moderate, good, and excellent reliability are shown, respectively, in red, yellow, light green, and dark green. Circles, triangles, and squares are used to represent measures extracted from flexibility, velocity, and acceleration signals, respectively.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Sagittal plane inter-rater vs. intra-rater reliability. Regions with poor, moderate, good, and excellent reliability are shown, respectively, in red, yellow, light green, and dark green. Circles, triangles, and squares are used to represent measures extracted from flexibility, velocity, and acceleration signals, respectively.
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