Meza Valderrama, DelkySánchez-Rodríguez, María DoloresPerkisas, StanyDuran Jordà, Xavier, 1974-Bastijns, SophieDávalos Yerovi, VanesaDa Costa, ElizabethMarco Navarro, Ester2022-08-012022-08-012022Meza-Valderrama D, Sánchez-Rodríguez D, Perkisas S, Duran X, Bastijns S, Dávalos-Yerovi V, Da Costa E, Marco E. The feasibility and reliability of measuring forearm muscle thickness by ultrasound in a geriatric inpatient setting: a cross-sectional pilot study. BMC Geriatr. 2022 Feb 18;22(1):137. DOI: 10.1186/s12877-022-02811-31471-2318http://hdl.handle.net/10230/53898Background: Given the potential benefits of introducing ultrasound in the clinical assessment of muscle disorders, this study aimed to assess the feasibility and reliability of measuring forearm muscle thickness by ultrasound in a geriatric clinical setting. Methods: Cross-sectional pilot study in 25 participants (12 patients aged ≥ 70 years in an acute geriatric ward and 13 healthy volunteers aged 25-50 years), assessed by three raters. Muscle thickness measurement was estimated as the distance between the subcutaneous adipose tissue-muscle interface and muscle-bone interface of the radius at 30% proximal of the distance between the styloid process and distal insertion of the biceps brachii muscle of the dominant forearm. Examinations were repeated three times by each rater and intra- and inter-rater reliability was calculated. Feasibility analysis included consideration of technological, economic, legal, operational, and scheduling (TELOS) components. Results: Mean muscle-thickness measurement difference between groups was 4.4 mm (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.4 mm to 6.3 mm], p < 0.001). Intra-rater reliability of muscle-thickness assessment was excellent, with intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.947 (95%CI 0.902 to 0.974), 0.969 (95%CI 0.942 to 0.985), and 0.950 (95%CI 0.907 to 0.975) for observer A, B, and C, respectively. Inter-rater comparison showed good agreement (ICC of 0.873 [95%CI 0.73 to 0.94]). Four of the 17 TELOS components considered led to specific recommendations to improve the procedure's feasibility in clinical practice. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that US is a feasible tool to assess the thickness of the forearm muscles with good inter-rater and excellent intra-rater reliability in a sample of hospitalized geriatric patients, making it a promising option for use in clinical practice.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-022-02811-3Forearm muscle thicknessInter-rater reliabilityIntra-rater reliabilityMuscle ultrasoundUltrasound feasibilityinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess