The Sitting Balance Scale is comparable to the Trunk Impairment Scale for measuring sitting balance in older adults who are nonambulatory or have limited mobility, say authors of an article published in Clinical Rehabilitation.
The authors conducted this prospective study in acute care, inpatient rehabilitation, skilled nursing facility, and home health settings. Participants included 98 patients, with a mean age of 80.5 (SD 7.9) years, who received physical therapy (n = 20 acute care, n = 18 inpatient rehabilitation, n = 30 skilled nursing facility, n = 30 home setting). Nineteen patients were nonambulatory, and 79 had limited functional mobility with Timed Up and Go scores ≥20 seconds. The main measures were the Sitting Balance Scale, Trunk Impairment Scale, Timed Up and Go, length of stay, and setting-specific clinical measures of sitting balance (OASIS-C M1850; MDS G-3b).
A moderate association between ambulatory status and sitting balance measures was found (Sitting Balance Scale r = 0.67, Trunk Impairment Scale r = 0.61). Moderate to strong relationships between Sitting Balance Scale, Trunk Impairment Scale, and clinical outcomes varied by setting. Multivariate analysis of variance results revealed differences between ambulators and nonambulators and among diagnostic categories for both instruments.
APTA member Mary Thompson, PT, PhD, GCS, is lead author of the article. APTA members Ann Medley, PT, PhD, CEEAA, and Steve Teran, PT, are coauthors.
Home care needs falls risk assessments validated in community dwellers that are appropriate for non-ambulatory persons who cannot perform other tests such as 5xSTS that meet CMS' criteria for OASIS-C M1910. Perhaps this tool will be explored for that purpose. Also, I'm wondering if authors looked for correlations between Sitting Balance Scale and other OASIS items such as dressing and emergent care for falls-related injury.
Posted by Cindy Lane Moore, PT, MPH, DPT
on 8/6/2012 1:16 PM
Nancy - If you are referring to the specific forms for the Sitting Balance and Trunk Impairment Scale, here is a link to the source article for the Development, Reliability, and Validity of the Sitting Balance Scale: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21574772. The article is not available in full text in Open Door. We've reached out to the authors on this to see if there's more data, but have not yet received a response (which is why there's been a delay in our response - my apologies).
For the Trunk Impairment Scale, this appears to be the source article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15137564. The full text article and the assessment form appears in Open Door: The Trunk Impairment Scale: a new tool to measure motor impairment of the trunk after stroke; Verheyden, G; Nieuwboer, A; Mertin, J; Preger, R; Kiekens, C; et al. Clinical Rehabilitation18. 3 (May 2004): 326-34. (www.apta.org/OpenDoor)
Thank you for your patience.
Posted by APTA Staff
on 8/10/2012 11:59 AM
Cindy, We thank you for your interest in sitting balance scales for lower functioning individuals. All 3 of us have worked in home care and realized this gap. We only looked at the single balance/transfer OASIS item and not the others but these are good ideas for future research.
Nancy, the tool is an appendix in the Physiotherapy Theory and Practice article. You can read the entire article by going to your local library and ordering it through interlibrary loan. If you just need the form, email Ann Medley, the first author of that article (smedley@twu.edu).
Posted by Mary Thompson, PT, PhD, GCS
on 8/10/2012 9:13 PM