The Assessment of Muscle Strength in Fracture Patients with Manual Muscle Testing: Narrative Literature Review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction: Decreased muscle strength in fracture patients can be caused by postoperative immobilization, thus requiring early immobilization to accelerate the fracture healing process. The principle of early immobilization is the same as the assessment of muscle strength, namely flexion, extension, and rotation to determine muscle strength in fracture patients. Objectives: To determine the decrease in muscle strength with the Manual Muscle Testing (MMT) method in fractured and non-fractured patients. Methods: Narrative literature review was chosen in this research design. Literature search through seven databases with keywords using boolean operators and found 6533 articles. The selection process is based on several criteria: the publication year 2015-2020, full-text access, National (SINTA) / International (Scimagojr) indexed articles, in English or Indonesian, so that 11 articles were reviewed in this study. Results: MMT is a reliable measurement tool, does not require additional tools to assess muscle strength and is universal (can assess muscle strength in fractures and non-fractures). Discussion: MMT examination needs to be performed on fracture patients to determine muscle strength to accelerate the muscle recovery process. Keywords: fracture, manual muscle testing, muscle strength assessment