Reprodutibilidade do teste de tempo de reação simples e de escolha nos membros inferiores em faixas etárias distintas

Abstract

Considered as an important measure of performance, reaction time is meant to be the time interval between the presentation of a stimulus and the beginning of the response of an individual. The instruments that measure this variable are largely laboratory-borne and are difficult to be transported. Therefore the need has arisen to test an instrument that can be transported to different places and applied to people of different age groups. The aim of the study was to test the reproducibility of an instrument for simple (TRS) and choice reaction time (TRE) of lower limbs within different age groups. The study included 126 individuals, of both sexes, selected by convenience and divided into five age groups (children, young adults, adults, middle-aged adults, young elderly). The instrument used simulates a car pedal connected to a software. For data analysis we used the within-class correlation coefficient (ICC) yielded by ANOVA with repeated measurements on the last factor to check the conformity of data through the test-retest method, performed by SPSS version 17.0, for a significance level of 5%. The results showed good reproducibility for the variable TRS in all groups (p = 0.978). However, for the TRE, the values did not point to acceptable levels of reproducibility (p = 0.007). Thus, we can conclude that the instrument has good levels of reproducibility for the variable TRS in all age groups examined. Hence, it represents an important tool to minimize delays in processing information.