Abstract des Autors

Peripheral muscle function (testing) has received growing attention in rehabilitation programs for COPD-patients. We assessed the intertester and intersession intratester reproducibility of Microfet hand-held dynamometry and measured the peripheral muscle strength of COPD-patients in a prospective study. Two examiners measured the strength of the flexor and extensor muscles of the knee and elbow and the handgrip-strength in 24 patients at different moments during a pulmonary rehabilitation program. The reproducibility expressed as coefficient of variation, was 6-10% for the upper and 12-20% for the lower extremity tests, showing worse results for the intertester values. We found a significant muscle weakness of the lower extremity and handgrip strength (60-75% of the predicted value) but normal strength for the extensor and flexor muscles of the elbow. We conclude that hand-held dynamometry is a useful method to determine peripheral muscle weakness in COPD-patients. To evaluate the effectiveness of peripheral muscle training it is necessary to improve the reproducibility by optimizing the standardization of the measurement procedure. Verf.-Referat