| Summary: | <p><strong>Objective</strong> To determine the reliability and validity of the Figure of 8 Walk test (F8W) for older people after knee replacement surgery in the home setting.</p> <p><strong>Design</strong> Observational repeated measures.</p> <p><strong>Setting</strong> A specialist orthopaedic hospital and participants homes.</p> <p><strong>Participants</strong> Seventy-four older adults aged over 55 years one year following knee replacement surgery participated in two assessments more than one week apart.</p> <p><strong>Main Outcome Measure</strong> The time to complete, steps, boundary limits and smoothness score from the Figure of 8 Walk test (F8W), the time to complete the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and the time to complete the Timed Walk Test (TWT).</p> <p><strong>Results</strong> Overall, on 95% of occasions, the difference between the measurements for intra-rater reliability were within 1.8 second of the two test times. The difference between the measurements for inter-rater reliability were found to be narrower than for intra-rater reliability with scores within 1.2 second overall on 95% of occasions. The time to perform the F8W was highly correlated to the Timed Up and Go (overall sample r = 0.921) and the variability spread within narrow limits (−0.8 to 0.8 z-scores). This was also true for the Timed Walk Test (overall sample r = 0.834) with a narrow limit of variability on almost all of the observations (−1.16 to 1.16 z-scores).</p> <p><strong>Conclusions</strong> The F8W test has good reliability and validity when used in either a clinical or home setting for patients around one year following knee replacement surgery.</p>
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