Testing Muscle Strength

Have you ever walked away feeling like you didn’t get enough information about your patient to be as effective as you could be in your treatment? Have you ever noticed that your patient is improving but the measures you’re using don’t show the progress you’re making? Then this is the course for you. Using a real patient, Richard Bohannon, the world’s leading expert in strength testing, will demonstrate why, how, and when to use a variety of clinically proven strength testing methods.

The ability to use muscles to bring force to bear on the environment is essential for everyday function. As adults age, their maximum force they can bring to bear on the environment (their strength) decreases. Clinicians, therefore, need to be able to quantify the muscle strength of older adults.

This course will begin by clarifying what we can actually measure and why we should bother to do so. Considerations relevant to all strength testing will be reviewed. Guidance and an opportunity to practice will be provided for four practical approaches to measuring the muscle strength of older adults in almost any environment. Specifically, manual muscle action testing, hand-grip dynamometry, hand-held dynamometry and field tests will be addressed. Finally, use of muscle strength testing in the context of the physical therapist’s overall management of an older adult patient will be demonstrated.

“A must”

“I highly recommend the course and that it is a great way to learn especially due to the patient demo. In order to get a real handle on how to do this I think this course is essential, and I trust without question the qualification, experience and education of the speakers.”

“Excellent material presented in an interesting way.”

“An excellent course focusing on the need to use more objective measures to justify the need for therapy and to quantify progress to third party payouts, as well as our patients and ourselves.”