Knee joint position sense ability in elite athletes who have returned to
international level play following ACL reconstruction: A cross-sectional study

Relph, N; Herrington, LC

Abstract

Background: Following an ACL injury, reconstruction (ACL-R) and rehabilitation, athletes may
return to play with a proprioceptive deficit. However, literature is lacking to support this
hypothesis in elite athletic groups who have returned to international levels of performance.
It is possible the potentially heightened proprioceptive ability evidenced in athletes may negate
a deficit following injury. The purpose of this study was to consider the effects of ACL injury,
reconstruction and rehabilitation on knee joint position sense (JPS) on a group of elite athletes
who had returned to international performance.
Methods: Using a cross-sectional design ten elite athletes with ACL-R and ten controls were
evaluated. JPS was tested into knee extension and flexion using absolute error scores. Average
data with 95% confidence intervals between the reconstructed, contralateral and uninjured
control knees were analyzed using t-tests and effect sizes.
Results: The reconstructed knee of the injured group demonstrated significantly greater angle
of error scores when compared to the contralateral and uninjured control into knee flexion
(p = 0.0001, r = 0.98) and knee extension (p = 0.0001, r = 0.91). There were no significant
differences between the contralateral uninjured knee of the injured group and the uninjured
control group.
Conclusions: Elite athletes who have had an ACL injury, reconstruction, rehabilitation and
returned to international play demonstrate lower JPS ability compared to control groups. It is
unclear if this deficiency affects long-term performance or secondary injury and re-injury problems.
In the future physical therapists should monitor athletes longitudinally when they return
to play.

Citation

international level play following ACL reconstruction: A cross-sectional study. ˜The œKnee (Amsterdam. Online), 23(6), 1029-1034. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knee.2016.09.005

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 1, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Oct 4, 2016
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Dec 15, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 4, 2017
• Journal: The Knee
• Print ISSN: 0968-0160
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-5800
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 1029-1034
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knee.2016.09.005
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.knee.2016.09.005
• Related Public URLs: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09680160