Comparison between ankle proprioception measurements and postural sway test for evaluating ankle instability in subjects with functional ankle instability
Affiliations: [a] Department of Health Science, The Graduate School, Korea University, Seoul, Korea | [b] Department of Physical Therapy, College of Natural Science, Daejeon University, Daejeon, Korea
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Jong-Duk Choi, Department of Physical Therapy, College of Natural Science, Daejeon University, 62, Daehak-Ro, Dong-Gu, Daejeon 300-716, Korea. Tel.: +82 42 280 2293; Fax: +82 42 280 2295; E-mail:choidew123@daum.net
Abstract: BACKGROUND: It is important to establish the effective evaluation
approaches that are appropriate for measuring ankle proprioception. But,
only a few studies used more than one test procedure simultaneously to
identify proprioceptive deficits. Further, no data are available on the
correlations between the measures of ankle proprioception and postural sway
(PS) test in subjects with functional ankle instability (FAI). OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify the relationship
between ankle proprioception measurements and PS test in subjects with FAI. METHODS: Of the 79 subjects enrolled in the case-control study, 40
had FAI and 39 were control subjects. Ankle proprioception was evaluated by
the angle reproduction (AR), force matching (FM), and the muscle reaction
(MR) to sudden ankle inversion tests. For the AR and FM tests, absolute
errors (AE) of ankle plantarflexion, dorsiflexion, inversion, and eversion
directions were calculated. For the MR test, reaction times and activation
of tibialis anterior (TA), peroneus longus (PL), and peroneus brevis (PB)
muscles were measured during sudden ankle inversion with a 30° tilting
angle. The PS test was investigated by using a force platform during
single-limb standing test. Three trials were performed and averaged in each
test. RESULTS: Reaction time of the PL (p = 0.006), a variable of MR test,
and plantarflexion (p = 0.001, p = 0.009) and eversion (p = 0.016, p = 0.039)
error variables of the AR and FM tests differed significantly between the
control and FAI groups. Moreover, these variables (r = -0.381 ∼ 0.788, p < 0.05)
showed strong significant correlations with the PS test-related variables, among others. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that these variables of ankle
proprioception measurements were more sensitive and discriminative than
others, and could be useful to assess ankle instability, particularly if the
method is to be applied in clinical studies and laboratory settings.
