TY - JOUR T1 - Reliability of hand-held dynamometer for assessment of electrically induced torque in critically ill patients JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/13993003.congress-2015.PA4815 VL - 46 IS - suppl 59 SP - PA4815 AU - Vinicius Silva AU - Larissa Santana AU - Natalia Pinto AU - Joao Luiz Durigan AU - Gerson Cipriano AU - Luciana Urache AU - Paulo Eugenio Silva Y1 - 2015/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/46/suppl_59/PA4815.abstract N2 - BackGround: Fully sedated patients that receiving mechanical ventilation (MV) are not able to follow commands, and often experience skeletal muscle weakness during the initial days of intensive care unit. The non-volitional assessment of peripheral muscle strength may be feasible and useful in these patients. A hand-held dynamometer (HHD) have been used to evaluate peripheral muscle strength, but its inter and intra reliability of strength measurements in sedated patients during electrically quadriceps induced torque (EQIT) remains unclear.Objective: To determine inter and intra-test reliability of strength measurements during EQIT using a HHD.Methods: Thirty patients in intensive care unit receiving MV (Aged 35 ± 13 years; APACHE II 25 ± 2), were tested by two examiners during two sessions, with order of examiners randomized. Biphasic pulses (phase duration 300 µs; pulse frequency 75 Hz) were employed in order to induce contractions of the quadriceps femoris muscle at a maximally visible contraction current level. Strength of EQIT was recorded with a HHD placed between the examiner's hand and the subjects' body.Results: Good inter and intra-tester reliability were determined with intra-class correlation coefficients ranging between 0.8 and 0.9, and no bias in the Bland-Altman plots.Conclusion: Our results confirm previous findings indicating good to excellent reliability of EQIT with a HHD. However, a high 95% repeatability range indicates the HHD is not sufficiently reliable as an indicator of the force level attained during electrically induced contractions. Other methods need to be investigated to assist in determining whether MEIC have reached therapeutic levels. ER -