A New Neck Goniometer

Abstract

A simple new goniometer has been developed for measurement of the mobility of the cervical spine. It consists of a headgear with three rigid scales calibrated in degrees, mounted on a skull cap with straps around the chin, and it measures flexion/extension, lateral flexion and horizontal rotation. Its construction and use are described. Three observers each tested the same 10 subjects to determine inter-observer error. Two observers then each tested 10 different subjects on two occasions at intervals of 10 to 30 minutes to test intra-observer error. Statistical analysis of the inter-observer error data by analysis of variance, and the intra-observer error data by calculation of means and standard errors of the differences between the means, showed that acceptably reproducible results could be obtained with this new goniometer, and it is also shown that an experienced observer can obtain more consistently reproducible results. Reference is made to the successful use of this technique in a comparative study (published elsewhere) of two drugs in degenerative joint disease of the cervical spine.

Clinimetric evaluation of active range of motion measures in patients with non-specific neck pain: a systematic review

“…After screening titles and abstracts, 481 studies were excluded. Of the remaining 68 studies, 33 publications were included after reading the full article [1–3, 8, 15, 16, 20, 32–37, 41, 48, 51, 53–56, 59, 61, 68–71, 73, 77, 78, 80, 84–86]. …”

“…In the literature we included, the terms goniometer and inclinometer are used interchangeably. The instruments included are: variations of universal goniometers [20, 41, 48, 56, 73, 86], a Myrin goniometer [8, 78], a Spin-T goniometer [1, 2, 32], the cervical range of motion instrument (CROM) [16, 33, 54, 55, 61, 69–71, 84, 85], single inclinometers [15, 20, 33, 59, 80], an electronic digital inclinometer EDI-320 [35, 68], a simple inclinometer [51], a gravity action inclinometer [37], a liquid inclinometer [3] and a spirit inclinometer [53] (Fig. 1).…”

“…In general, the methodological quality of the older literature (published before 1995) is lower than the more recent literature. Older articles mainly describe reliability and eight of those articles did not use the ICC as a statistical measurement for reliability [3, 8, 16, 36, 37, 41, 51, 86]. …”

“…Nineteen articles used healthy subjects [2, 3, 8, 15, 16, 32, 33, 36, 51, 53–56, 68, 69, 71, 73, 85, 86], 4 articles used patients other than non-specific neck pain patients [37, 48, 78, 80] and 9 articles included patients with non-specific neck pain [20, 34, 35, 41, 59, 61, 70, 77, 84]. …”

Three-dimensional analysis of cervical spine motion: reliability of a computer assisted magnetic tracking device compared to inclinometer

“…However, the radiographic techniques have the disadvantage of radiation exposure, equipment availability, expense and time consumption. Moreover, goniometric techniques have been employed to measure cervical range of motion with high reproducible measurements and good correlation with radiographically determined range of motion [1,12,20,23,27,28]. Several studies have compared different methods for the evaluation of cervical range of motion and investigation of their reliability [25,27,29].…”