Excellent test-retest repeatability for Medoc’s AlgoMed Pressure Algometer

Medoc’s AlgoMed has recently been validated in a study on patients with unilateral lateral epicondylitis.

Lateral epicondylitis is a tendonitis of a lower arm muscle tendon, the extensor carpi radialis brevis muscle, at the elbow site insertion.

Patients with lateral epicondylitis may suffer from functional impairment in day-to-day tasks like picking up a chair or holding a cup of coffee due to localized and radiating pain.

Evaluation and follow-up of a clinical state requires validated and repeatable measures.

In this study pressure pain thresholds were tested using Medoc’s AlgoMed at the painful lateral epicondyle, the unaffected lateral epicondyle, and in the lower leg at the level of mid-tibia.

Tests were repeated within session after about half an hour, after two days, and after 28 days.

Excellent repeatability was found within session ranging between 0.93, 0.96, and 0.97 ICC (Intra-class correlation coefficients with 95% confidence interval) for the painful elbow, contralateral elbow and tibia, respectively. Between sessions the repeatability reached 0.93 ICC for the affected elbow, and 0.94 ICC for both the unaffected elbow and the tibia respectively.

The AlgoMed can contribute in clinical and research use in standardizable test stimuli and highly repeatable results.

Heales, L., Hill, C., Kean, C., & Stanton, R. (2021). Within-and between-session test-retest reliability of pressure pain threshold in individuals with lateral elbow tendinopathy. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 24, S79-S80.