The Balance Intensity Scales for Therapists and Exercisers Measure Balance Exercise Intensity in Older Adults: Initial Validation Using Rasch Analysis.
Melanie K Farlie, Jennifer L Keating, Elizabeth Molloy and 6 others
PMID 31309981WHAT IT FOUND
The therapist checklist could fairly separate balance tasks into lower and higher intensity.
The exerciser self-rating scale was less dependable, so a simple 5-point effort rating may be more useful.
Key findings
01The refined therapist scale could at best separate balance tasks into two broad intensity levels, while the refined exerciser scale could not separate true differences from measurement error.
02Total scores on both scales correlated strongly with the 5-point global effort rating: 0.86 for therapist ratings, 0.70 for exerciser ratings, and 0.70 between therapist and exerciser effort ratings.
03Therapists rated 66 of 319 tasks and exercisers 48 of 319 tasks as high effort, lower than the 107 of 319 expected if one-third were high challenge.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Two-thirds of exercisers needed help completing the self-rating form, which may have influenced their responses. The exerciser scale could not separate true differences from measurement error, so its total score is not dependable. Therapists rarely prescribed high-intensity tasks, so the scales were not tested well at the higher end of balance challenge. The therapist scale could at best separate two broad intensity levels, not fine differences between tasks. Some items did not behave as intended. A fall item was never observed, and another fall item caused confusion.
Declared interests
M.K.F. was supported by a Monash University Maxwell King PhD Scholarship. T.P.H. was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Career Development Fellowship. The funders played no role in the design, conduct, or reporting.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the BIS-E total score as a validated self-rating scale for older adults. The exerciser scale had poor separation, and the authors recommend using the simple 5-point global effort rating for exercisers until further validation.