A pilot study, published online May 23 in Prosthetics and Orthotics International, used cumulative odds ordinal logistic regression to determine how accurately K-levels could be predicted by using the Amputee Mobility Predictor (AMP) in combination with patient characteristics for 198 people with transtibial and transfemoral amputations. The researchers concluded that for people assigned to the K2 or K3 level by their clinicians, the AMP predicted the clinician-assigned K-level more than 80 percent of the time. The AMP’s prediction of clinician-assigned K-level for people at the K1 or K4 level was less accurate. The odds of being in a higher K-level improved with younger age and transfemoral amputations.
The pilot study highlighted critical method design issues, such as potential predictor variables and sample size requirements for future prospective research, according to the researchers. While the model seemed sufficiently accurate to predict clinician assignment to the K2 or K3 level, further work is needed in larger and more representative samples, particularly for people with K1 and K4 levels of mobility, to be confident in the model’s predictive value prior to use in clinical practice.
