N. P. Gleeson , P. F. Naish , J. E. Wilcock , T. H. Mercer
DOI: 10.1080/165019702760390365

The purpose of this study was to examine the day-to-day reproducibility and single measurement reliability of peak force, time to half peak force and rate of force development indices of knee extension neuromuscular performance in patients with end-stage renal failure. Eleven self-selected patients (6 men, 5 women) receiving maintenance dialysis (dialysis history 67 ± 42. 8 month) completed 3 inter-day assessment sessions. Each comprised a standardized warm-up and 3 intermittent static maximal voluntary actions of the knee extensors of the preferred limb (45 ° knee flexion angle [0° = full knee extension]) using a specially-constructed dynamometer. Repeated measures ANOVA of coefficient of variation scores revealed significant differences between indices in their reproducibility across day-to-day trials. Post-hoc comparisons of group mean scores suggested that peak force (6. 6 ± 3. 0%) offers significantly greater measurement reproducibility than time to half peak force (16. 8 ± 9. 5%) or rate of force development (20. 3 ± 12. 1%). Intraclass correlation coefficients and standard error of measurement scores showed that single-trial assessments of peak force, time to half peak force and rate of force development would demonstrate limited precision and capability to discriminate subtle intra-subject or inter-subject changes in neuromuscular performance.