Reliability of Volumetry and Perimetry to Assess Knee Volume.

CONTEXT The treatment of edema after a knee injury is usually 1 of the main objectives during rehabilitation. To assess the success of treatment, 2 methods are commonly used in clinical practice: volumetry and perimetry. OBJECTIVE To investigate the intra- and interassessor reliability of volumetry and perimetry to assess knee volume. DESIGN Cross-sectional. SETTING Laboratory. PARTICIPANTS 45 healthy participants (26 women) with mean age of 22.4 ± 2.8 y. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Knee volume was assessed by 3 assessors (A, B, and C) with 3 methods (lower-limb volumetry [LLV], knee volumetry [KV], and knee perimetry [KP]). Assessor A was the most-experienced assessor, and assessor C, the least experienced. LLV and KV were performed with participants in the orthostatic position, while KP was performed with participants in supine. RESULTS For the interassessor analysis, the ICC2,1 was high (.82) for KV and very high for LLV (.99) and KP (.99). For the intra-assessor analysis, ICC2,1 ranged from moderate to high for KV (.69-.83) and was very high for LLV (.99) and KP (.97-.99). CONCLUSION KV, LLV, and KP are reliable methods, both intra- and interassessor, to measure knee volume.