Stair climb test
The stair climb test has been used extensively as an outcome
measure in TKA [3, 13, 35–37]. The test assesses
the time, in seconds, to ascend and descend a flight of
stairs. The number of stairs in the flight and the step
height are recorded. In the current study, a four-step
staircase will be used. The use of a handrail and gait aids
are permitted and will be recorded, as will be the footstep
pattern (reciprocal or step-to). Inter-rater reliability was
reported as ICC (2,1) = 0.94 (95 % CI =0.55-0.98). MDC90
was calculated as 2.6 seconds [38]. The stair climb test has
demonstrated adequate construct validity [39] and responsiveness
detecting initial deterioration (effect size = −0.84)
from pre-op to 1 month post-TKA scores, and then subsequent
improvement (effect size = 1.26) from 1 month to
12 months post-TKA on a 12-step flight [36].