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Reliability of Trapezius Muscle Hardness Measurement: A Comparison between Portable Muscle Hardness Meter and Ultrasound Strain Elastography

Prolonged computer work and smartphone use can cause stiffness of the neck and shoulder muscles, including the trapezius muscle. Hence, muscle hardness quantification is clinically beneficial. The present study aimed to examine the reliability of trapezius muscle hardness measurement using a portabl...

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Autores principales: Sawada, Tomonori, Okawara, Hiroki, Nakashima, Daisuke, Iwabuchi, Shuhei, Matsumoto, Morio, Nakamura, Masaya, Nagura, Takeo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7765603/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33339151
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20247200
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author Sawada, Tomonori
Okawara, Hiroki
Nakashima, Daisuke
Iwabuchi, Shuhei
Matsumoto, Morio
Nakamura, Masaya
Nagura, Takeo
author_facet Sawada, Tomonori
Okawara, Hiroki
Nakashima, Daisuke
Iwabuchi, Shuhei
Matsumoto, Morio
Nakamura, Masaya
Nagura, Takeo
author_sort Sawada, Tomonori
collection PubMed
description Prolonged computer work and smartphone use can cause stiffness of the neck and shoulder muscles, including the trapezius muscle. Hence, muscle hardness quantification is clinically beneficial. The present study aimed to examine the reliability of trapezius muscle hardness measurement using a portable muscle hardness meter and ultrasound strain elastography. Overall, 20 healthy young men participated in this study. Prior to measurement, the participant’s subjective symptoms, particularly shoulder muscle stiffness, were rated using an 11-point verbal scale. Furthermore, hardness of the right and left upper trapezius muscles was assessed. In the strain elastography assessment, muscle hardness was evaluated using strain ratio. Results showed that, in quantifying upper trapezius muscle hardness, both portable muscle hardness meter and strain elastography had an excellent intra-tester reliability (>0.9). However, the correlation coefficients between muscle hardness values assessed using a muscle hardness meter and those evaluated with strain elastography did not significantly differ, and the scores for subjective shoulder stiffness did not correspond to muscle hardness values. Therefore, the hardness of the trapezius muscle does not directly reflect the subjective shoulder stiffness. Future studies should thoroughly examine the location of the shoulder stiffness, and check whether it is accompanied by local pain or tenderness.
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spelling pubmed-77656032020-12-27 Reliability of Trapezius Muscle Hardness Measurement: A Comparison between Portable Muscle Hardness Meter and Ultrasound Strain Elastography Sawada, Tomonori Okawara, Hiroki Nakashima, Daisuke Iwabuchi, Shuhei Matsumoto, Morio Nakamura, Masaya Nagura, Takeo Sensors (Basel) Letter Prolonged computer work and smartphone use can cause stiffness of the neck and shoulder muscles, including the trapezius muscle. Hence, muscle hardness quantification is clinically beneficial. The present study aimed to examine the reliability of trapezius muscle hardness measurement using a portable muscle hardness meter and ultrasound strain elastography. Overall, 20 healthy young men participated in this study. Prior to measurement, the participant’s subjective symptoms, particularly shoulder muscle stiffness, were rated using an 11-point verbal scale. Furthermore, hardness of the right and left upper trapezius muscles was assessed. In the strain elastography assessment, muscle hardness was evaluated using strain ratio. Results showed that, in quantifying upper trapezius muscle hardness, both portable muscle hardness meter and strain elastography had an excellent intra-tester reliability (>0.9). However, the correlation coefficients between muscle hardness values assessed using a muscle hardness meter and those evaluated with strain elastography did not significantly differ, and the scores for subjective shoulder stiffness did not correspond to muscle hardness values. Therefore, the hardness of the trapezius muscle does not directly reflect the subjective shoulder stiffness. Future studies should thoroughly examine the location of the shoulder stiffness, and check whether it is accompanied by local pain or tenderness. MDPI 2020-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7765603/ /pubmed/33339151 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20247200 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Letter
Sawada, Tomonori
Okawara, Hiroki
Nakashima, Daisuke
Iwabuchi, Shuhei
Matsumoto, Morio
Nakamura, Masaya
Nagura, Takeo
Reliability of Trapezius Muscle Hardness Measurement: A Comparison between Portable Muscle Hardness Meter and Ultrasound Strain Elastography
title Reliability of Trapezius Muscle Hardness Measurement: A Comparison between Portable Muscle Hardness Meter and Ultrasound Strain Elastography
title_full Reliability of Trapezius Muscle Hardness Measurement: A Comparison between Portable Muscle Hardness Meter and Ultrasound Strain Elastography
title_fullStr Reliability of Trapezius Muscle Hardness Measurement: A Comparison between Portable Muscle Hardness Meter and Ultrasound Strain Elastography
title_full_unstemmed Reliability of Trapezius Muscle Hardness Measurement: A Comparison between Portable Muscle Hardness Meter and Ultrasound Strain Elastography
title_short Reliability of Trapezius Muscle Hardness Measurement: A Comparison between Portable Muscle Hardness Meter and Ultrasound Strain Elastography
title_sort reliability of trapezius muscle hardness measurement: a comparison between portable muscle hardness meter and ultrasound strain elastography
topic Letter
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7765603/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33339151
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20247200
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