- 作者：J Laycock ; D Jerwood
- 关键词：Pelvic floor ; assessment ; research ; validity ; reliability
- 刊名：Physiotherapy
- 出版年：2001
- 出版时间：December 2001
- 年：2001
- 卷：87
- 期：12
- 页码：631-642
- 全文大小：134 K
1. To develop a digital technique to assess pelvic floor muscles (PFM).
2. To validate the technique and test for validity and reliability.
3. To translate the assessment into an exercise-based regimen.
Method and Results
PERFECT is an acronym with P representing power (or pressure, a measure of strength using a manometric perineometer), E = endurance, R = repetitions, F = fast contractions, and finally ECT = every contraction timed. The scheme was developed to simplify and clarify PFM assessment. The pressure (referred to hereafter as power, although actually a surrogate measure of muscular strength) of a contraction was validated by examining perineal lift and perineometric pressure during a maximum voluntary contraction (MVC). Data analysis demonstrated significant positive correlations between power and both lift (r = 0.864; p = 0.031) and perineometric pressure (r = 0.786; p = 0.001); digitally assessed endurance correlated with the area under the pressure curve of a sophisticated perineometer (r = 0.549; p = 0.001). A study of inter-examiner reliability demonstrated highly significant positive correlations between two examiners for power (r = 0.947; p < 0.001), endurance (r = 0.946; p < 0.001), repetitions (r = 0.730; p < 0.005) and number of fast contractions (r = 0.909; p < 0.001). Scatter diagrams confirmed a lack of systematic bias between examiners.
Test-retest reliability produced highly significant correlations (p < 0.001) between power (r = 0.929) and endurance values (r = 0.988) recorded on two different occasions, with no convincing evidence of significant discrepancies between the pair of assessments.
Conclusions
The PERFECT scheme has demonstrated reliability and validity as an assessment tool. Furthermore, it is proposed that this scheme provides guidelines for the planning of patient-specific exercise programmes which satisfy the principles of muscle training.