Inter-rater and Intra-rater Reliability of the Cutting Movement Assessment Score Among Physical Therapists.

Only three therapists rated the videos and only one scored them a second time, so the estimate of how much therapists differ rests on a very small number of people. The study was sized to detect a moderate level of agreement at best (18 athletes were calculated as the minimum for an ICC of 0.60), so it cannot separate good agreement from excellent agreement. Planned and unplanned cuts were scored together and the authors did not compare agreement between the two conditions, even though the movement itself differs. All the athletes were injury-free female collegiate basketball players, so this says nothing about male athletes, other sports, or players tested after ACL injury or surgery. Only one athlete had a previous ACL injury. Therapists could slow the video down and replay it as many times as they wanted, with no set review protocol, which is not how a clinic visit runs. The training was delivered by one of the developers of the test, which the authors themselves note may not be realistic in every clinic. The suggestion that more experienced therapists spot movement faults better comes from comparing one entry-level rater with two experienced ones and is the authors' interpretation, not a tested result.

The authors declare no known conflicts of interest related to this work. The supplied text contains no funding statement, so who paid for the study is not stated.

Do not read this as showing the CMAS gives the same score in different therapists' hands. Overall agreement between therapists was moderate, and the therapist pair furthest apart in experience scored 0.49, which falls in the poor band on the scale the authors used. The related idea that more experienced therapists spot movement faults better comes from comparing just three raters and is not something this study can show.