Inter-rater Reliability of Posture Pro 8 Software Analysis in Upper Body Dysfunction: A Prospective Study

Introduction: Postural compensatory movement impairment is
the most common musculoskeletal problem in all age-related
population. Upper body dysfunction is a new terminology of
movement impairment where the subjects have discomfort in
either the neck, shoulder, or upper back region mainly due to poor postural adaptation. Varying postural analysis methods are in practice; however, photography of subjects on posture software analysis is very rarely used. The literature on using this postural analysis software is also not adequately available. Aim: To evaluate inter-rater reliability of the Posture pro 8 software for measuring the postural changes from digital photos of subjects with upper body dysfunction. Materials and Methods: This study has a prospective cross- sectional study design and obtained ethical consent from the Institutional Ethical Committee before participants enrolment. Sixty participants of both sexes (28 males and 32 females) with neck, shoulder, or upper back problems for more than three months participated in this reliability study. The lateral-view photos of the participants in a relaxed standing posture were taken. Postural evaluations of the photos of the participants
were performed by three observers with a repetition after a
week. In this study, postural abnormalities of the participants were evaluated by the three observers using the Posture pro 8 software. Results: Inter-rater reliabilities were calculated using Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC). ICC value of 0.774 and 0.972 were found to be in the range of acceptable to excellent between the observers.
Conclusion: Postural evaluations of the participants with upper body dysfunction using the Posture pro 8 software were found to be reliable and repeatable. The present method was an easy and non-invasive method and may be utilised by researchers who are in search of an alternative method for postural assessments.