Abstract
Use of functional knee braces has been suggested to provide protection and to improve kinetic performance of the knee in Anterior cruciate ligament(ACL)-injured patients. However, many athletes might refrain from wearing the braces because of the fear of performance hindrance in the playing field. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of three functional knee brace/sleeves upon the isokinetic and functional performance of ACL-deficient and healthy subjects. Six anterior cruciate ligament deficient (29.0±5.3 yrs., 175.2±5.4 cm, and 73.0±10.0 kg) and six healthy male subjects (27.2±3.7 yrs., 176.4±6.4 cm, and 70.3±6.9 kg) were selected. The effect of a custom-made functional knee brace, and two neoprene knee sleeves, one with four metal supports and one without support were examined via the use of isokinetic and functional tests in four sets (non-braced,wearing functional knee brace,and wearing the sleeves). Cross-over hop and single leg vertical jump test were performed and jump height, and hop distance were recorded. Peak torque to body weight ratio and average power in two isokinetic velocities(60°.s−1,180°.s−1) were recorded and the brace/sleeves effect was calculated as the changes in peak torque measured in the brace/sleeves conditions, expressed as a percentage of peak torque measured in non-braced condition. Frequency content of the isokinetic torque-time curves was also analyzed. Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare the measured values in four test conditions within each control and ACL-deficient group,and Mann-Whitney U test was used for the comparison between the two groups. No significant differences in peak torque, average power, torque-time curve frequency content, vertical-jump and hop measurements were found within the experimental and the non-braced conditions (p>0.05). Although the examined functional knee brace/sleeves had no significant effect on the knee muscle performance, there have been some enhancement regarding the extension peak torques and power generating capacity of the ACL-deficient subjects that could be helpful in reducing the bilateral asymmetry in these patients.
Highlights
Use of functional knee braces (FKB) has been suggested to provide protection and to improve kinetic performance of the knee in ACL-injured patients [1,2,3]
The results revealed that the examined FKB and sleeves did not significantly improve or impaired the force control and force generation capacity of the knee joint in either anterior cruciate ligament-deficient (ACLD) or normal participants
Several studies have shown that when biologic signals are transferred from time domain to frequency domain, their rapid changes could be noted as high frequency contents [14,17,21] Tsepis compared the frequency content of torque-time curve of concentric isokinetic knee flexion and extension in intact and ACLD knee of 30 ACL deficient subjects
Summary
Use of functional knee braces (FKB) has been suggested to provide protection and to improve kinetic performance of the knee in ACL-injured patients [1,2,3]. The results of the subjective evaluations revealed that patients responded positively to wearing the braces indicating better knee stability, performance and pain alleviation [4,6]. The results of isokinetic tests on the immediate effect of knee braces showed that, depending on the patient’s strength, injury type, previous history of wearing the knee braces and brace design, the protective knee braces can have some deteriorating effect on the torque generating capacity of the knee musculature [3,9,10,11,12] In all of these studies the conventional isokinetic results such as peak torque to body weight ratio (PTBWR), average power and total work were considered. Applying a method to quantify these oscillations in the isokinetic torque pattern could give a more accurate result in assessing the effect of different sorts of treatment including brace application [13,14]
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