Physical therapy in sport : official journal of the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Sports Medicine | 2019
Athletes at late stage rehabilitation have persisting deficits in plantar- and dorsiflexion, and inversion (but not eversion) after ankle sprain.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES\nDocument reliability and normative data for a novel device measuring weight-bearing ankle range of motion after ankle injury.\n\n\nDESIGN\nCross-sectional Cohort, two occasions one day apart.\n\n\nSETTING\nSports medicine hospital.\n\n\nPARTICIPANTS\n87 ankle-injured male athletes at a late stage of their rehabilitation and 25 uninjured subjects. The injured athletes had met\xa0all criteria to return to functional, on-field rehabilitation.\n\n\nMAIN OUTCOME MEASURES\nReliability (Intra-Class correlation Coefficient (ICC), and Minimum Detectable Change as a percent of the grand mean), weight-bearing range of motion (degrees) of dorsiflexion, plantarflexion, inversion, and eversion.\n\n\nRESULTS\nGood (dorsiflexion\u202f=\u202f0.82[0.76-0.87] and inversion\u202f=\u202f0.81[0.75-0.86]) and excellent (plantarflexion\u202f=\u202f0.93[0.90-0.95]) reliability was documented, however reliability for the eversion measure showed only fair reliability (0.61[0.49-0.70]). Reduced range of motion in the injured leg was seen in all 4 directions, however with different magnitudes: Large differences were plantarflexion (-8.5°, ES\u202f=\u202f0.80), medium for dorsiflexion (-5.2°, 0.57), small for inversion (-4.8°, 0.36), and trivial for eversion (-1.7°, 0.15).\n\n\nCONCLUSION\nThe device demonstrated clinically useful reliability for measuring these ranges of motion in a functional, weight-bearing position. PF ROM showed the greatest reduction in range in these athletes at a late stage of their rehabilitation.