AI Article Synopsis

  • The North Star Ambulatory Assessment (NSAA) is used to evaluate motor skills in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a genetic muscle disorder.
  • Cross-cultural adaptation to Brazilian Portuguese was conducted using multiple translation and validation methods, involving both healthy boys and those with DMD for comprehensive analysis.
  • The assessment was found to be reliable with high internal consistency and strong reproducibility, as well as valid, showing good correlations with other established motor function measures.

Article Abstract

The North Star Ambulatory Assessment measures motor performance in ambulatory boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a hereditary and degenerative muscle disorder. To use the North Star Ambulatory Assessment in Brazilian boys, we performed the cross-cultural adaptation to the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil and evaluated the reliability and validity of the instrument. Cross-cultural adaptation included: independent translations, synthesis, committee review, pre-testing in 12 boys, back-translation and comparison with the original instrument. Thirty-five boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and 38 healthy age-matched controls were recruited for further analyses. Reliability was assessed by internal consistency and reproducibility. Validity studies included face, content, construct and known-groups analyses. Cross-cultural adaptation resulted in an adequate instrument. Reliability studies demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.935) and adequate intra and inter-rater reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.988 and 0.962). Validation analyses indicated satisfactory content, face and convergent construct validities, with positive correlations with the Motor Function Measure total score (r = 0.863) and the 6-minute walk test (r = 0.433). The known group validity was demonstrated by higher scores in younger boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (p = 0.005). North Star Ambulatory Assessment in Brazilian Portuguese is a reliable and valid instrument to measure functional capacity in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nmd.2017.05.013DOI Listing

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