Projects

Functional Movement Screen (FMS) validation

A. Project Name

B. Submitted to the call/funding institution

FCT (projeto exploratório)

C. Principal Investigator

Pedro Aleixo

D. Timeline

23/02/2024 (submitted)

E. Partners

F. From CIDEFES

Pedro Aleixo

Maria Bhudarally

G. Summary

Improving functional and physical capacities for all at all ages, and consequently their health and well-being, is an important challenge for Exercise
and Health professionals. The prescription of individualized exercise programs that reduce the risk of injury and decrease the likelihood of long-term
disability is the way to achieve this. Nonetheless, assessing movement quality, i.e., stability and joint mobility, is the first step in correctly creating an
individualized exercise program. Therefore, a valid, inexpensive, and easy-to-administer tool for the assessment of stability and joint mobility must
be available for all Exercise and Health professionals. In this way, the VALID_FMS project aims to assess the convergent validity of a widely used
clinical tool for the evaluation of stability and joint mobility deficits, i.e., the Functional Movement Screen (FMS). This screening system intends to
identify stability and joint mobility deficits during the performance of 7 movement patterns (deep squat; hurdle step; in-line lunge; shoulder mobility;
active straight leg raise; trunk stability push-up; rotary stability), which are scored by visual observation (between 0 and 3) based on standardized
criteria. According to literature, the convergent validity of this inexpensive and easy-to-administer tool was not yet proved.
This project was already submitted and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculdade de Educação Física e Desporto da Universidade
Lusófona, Lisboa, Portugal. In this way, a sample of 153 active young students will be selected from the Faculdade de Educação Física e Desporto,
Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon, Portugal. Subjects with any musculoskeletal injury in the last 3-months will be excluded. Selected subjects will
review and sign an informed consent form prior to participating in the project. The following data will be collected from each subject during a single
assessment session: demographic data; data related to the physical activity performed by the selected subjects during the previous 3 months; FMS
scores; biomechanical parameters related to stability (i.e., centre of pressure and centre of gravity data, as well as their space-time relationship) and
joint mobility (i.e., joint angular positions data at crucial points of the movement). At the beginning of the assessment session, demographic data and
data related to the physical activity performed by the selected subjects will be collected using an online form. Before performing FMS tests, a warm up comprising 5 minutes of pre-defined active stretching exercises will be performed. The subjects will perform barefoot the FMS tests, according to the FMS guidelines. For each test, 5 trials will be collected for analysis (in bilateral tests will be collected 5 trials/each side). Videos of the subjects’ performances (in frontal and sagittal plane) will be collected by two video cameras (Casio Exilim EX-ZR100). These videos will be later observed and scored by two evaluators with FMS certification. Each FMS test will be scored according to the FMS criteria. The biomechanical parameters related to stability and joint mobility will be collected through a 3-dimensional motion analysis system (Vicon® Motion Capture System, which includes 9 Vicon Vero cameras) synchronized with a pressure platform (RSscan). Kinematic data will be recorded at 200 Hz using the Vicon Nexus software (version 2.9.3). The pressure platform will allow collecting the center of pressure data. These data will also be recorded at 200 Hz using the footscan Balance software. The same researcher will prepare all subjects, i.e., will collect the anthropometric data and place 41 spherical reflective markers on the subjects’ anatomical landmarks, according to the FullBody PlugInGait model (Vicon Motion Systems). The required anthropometric data to develop this model comprise: height and body mass collected using a SECA 764 station (Hamburg, Germany); anthropometric diameters collected using Siber-Hegner instruments (Siber & Hegner, Zurich, Switzerland).
Regarding data analysis, subjects with a score of “0” in a FMS test (pain during the movement) will be excluded from analysis regarding those FMS
test. Convergent validity is a central feature of the construct validity, which can be demonstrated by high correlation with tests that assess similar
constructs. In this way, the Spearman’s rank correlation will be used to study the correlation between the biomechanical parameters (gold standard
data) and the FMS scores. Moreover, the Kruskal-Wallis test will be used to test the ability of the FMS scores to discriminate between subjects with
different levels of stability and joint mobility, i.e., comparing the different FMS scores.
The dissemination of the project results will be accomplished in the following manner: publication of articles in open-access international journals;
presentations in national and international conferences; organization of 1 final conference; website.