• originally developed to measure mobility for patients with acquired brain injury.
  • evaluates patients’ bed mobility, postural transfers, and walking ability.
  • covers a range of activities, from turning over in bed to running.

Clinical Considerations

  • The RMI is simple and quick to complete making it easy to perform in the home, institutional or office settings. There is minimal patient or clinician burden.
  • The 14 interview questions should be fairly quick and easy to administer but the direct observation item requiring the patient to stand without aid may not be appropriate to individuals with an SCI. Additionally, since the RMI was originally developed to measure mobility for patients with acquired brain injury, self-report items in the measure may not be applicable to individuals with an SCI.

ICF Domain

Activity ▶ Mobility

  • Combined self-report and performance-based format.
  • The RMI is quick to administer (approximately 3-5 minutes).

Number of Items

15-item scale: 14 questions and one direct observation

Equipment

None

Scoring

  • Item 5 requires the patient to stand for 10 seconds without any aid; if the subject can stand for 10 seconds, a response of ‘yes’(1) is indicated.
  • The other questions require the patient to respond either yes (scored 1) or no (scored 0).
  • Scores for the 15 items are summed.

Languages

English, Dutch, Chinese and Italian.

Training Required

Does not require advanced training.

Availability

Can be found here.

# of studies reporting psychometric properties: 2

Interpretability

  • The range of scores is between 0 (poor mobility) and 15 (good mobility).
  • No information is available regarding norms or meaningful cut scores for SCI population
  • Published data for the SCI population is available for comparison (see Interpretability section of the Research Summary sheet)

MCID: not established
SEM: not established for the SCI population, but for a chronic stroke sample (N = 50, mean (SD) age: 60.9 (12.8) yrs, Taiwanese sample):
SEM = 0.5
SRD  = 2.2

(Chen, H. M., Hsieh, C. L., et al. (2007): “The test-retest reliability of 2 mobility performance tests in patients with chronic stroke.” Neurorehabil Neural Repair 21(4): 347-352)

MDC: not established

Reliability

No values were reported for the reliability of the RMI for the SCI population.

Validity

Correlation of the RMI is High with:

  • the Walking Index for Spinal Cord Injury (WISCI) (Spearman’s r = 0.67)
  • the Spinal Cord Independence Measure (SCIM) (Spearman’s r = 0.75)
  • the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) (Spearman’s r = 0.9)
  • the Barthel Index (BI) (Spearman’s r = 0.60).

(Morganti et al. 2005)

Responsiveness

No values were reported for the responsiveness of the RMI for the SCI population.

Floor/Ceiling Effect

No values were reported for the presence of floor/ceiling effects in the RMI for the SCI population.

Reviewers

Dr. William Miller, Christie Chan, Gita Manhas

Date Last Updated

22 July 2020

Forlander DA, Bohannon RW. Rivermead Mobility Index: a brief review of research to date. Clinical Rehabilitation 1999; 13: 97-100.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10348388

Hsieh CL, Hsueh IP, Mao HF. Validity and responsiveness of the Rivermead Mobility Index in stroke patients. Scand J Rehab Med 2000; 32: 140-142.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11028799

Morganti B, Scivoletto G, Ditunno P, Ditunno JF, Molinari M. Walking Index for spinal cord injury (WISCI): criterion validation. Spinal Cord 2005;43:27-33.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15520841

Scivoletto G, Morganti B, Ditunno P, Ditunno JF, Molinari M. Effects on age on spinal cord lesion patients’ rehabilitation. Spinal Cord, 2003; 41: 457-464.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12883544

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