Measurement Properties of the Functional Balance Ability Measure Across Subacute Neurologic Diagnoses.

Only subacute inpatients at one rehabilitation unit were studied, and useful detail such as the cause of injury or the level of a spinal cord injury was not recorded as separate data in the records used. Data came from routine care, so data entry mistakes, differences between raters and differences in how testing was carried out could all have introduced error. The spinal cord injury group (190 people) and the other neurologic disorders group (87 people) were not large enough for a reliable answer, so real differences between items in those groups could have been missed. The authors called a difference of 0.5 logits between diagnostic groups meaningful, but other groups propose 0.67 to 1.0; the largest difference actually observed was -0.67 logits, so some findings may be marginal. Two walking items about turning the head measured largely the same thing as each other, suggesting they may be redundant; whether either should be dropped needs checking in a new sample. One in five patients scored the lowest possible value, so the measure cannot show change in very low-balance patients.

The authors state that the investigators have no financial or nonfinancial disclosures to make in relation to this project. No funding source is given in the article text supplied.

Do not use this measure to compare or track patients who have very little balance. Twenty-one per cent of the patients in this study scored the lowest possible value, and 45% of the spinal cord injury group did, so the measure cannot show whether those patients are improving.