TWO-MINUTE STEP TEST OF EXERCISE CAPACITY: SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF PROCEDURES, PERFORMANCE, AND CLINIMETRIC PROPERTIES

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE

Due to the value of functional endurance, physical therapists use assessment tools such as the 2/6-minute walk test, step-up tests, and/or sit-to-stand tests to assess their patient’s endurance. Unfortunately, many therapists run into barriers that result in the modification of standardized outcome measures. This inevitably affects the test’s validity and/or reliability. This is why Rikli and Jones introduced the 2-min step test (TMST) as part of their Senior Fitness Test. The TMST eliminates the environmental barriers, such as requiring a 30-m indoor corridor, as well as personal barriers, such as decreased balance, strength, and or increased pain. However, due to limited research and knowledge about this test it has not been fully implemented in clinical practice. The authors of this article wanted to summarize the available TMST literature. They did this by completing a thorough search of the literature to examine TMST procedures, performance, and clinimetric properties, including reliability, validity, responsiveness, and interpretability.

Rikli and Jones Normatve Values:

METHODS

In addition to searching three electronic databases, the authors performed a manual search to ensure maximal inclusion of relevant literature. Articles were included if the research was performed with adults and described the use of Rikli and Jones TMST. Non-English written articles were excluded. After creating a list of included articles, the authors examined the articles’ quality and extracted pertinent data. Pertinent data included information about the test descriptions, TMST related values, and clinimetric properties.

RESULTS

30 articles met the inclusion criteria and the following data was extracted:

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