impairments that could contribute to lower-limb injury. 17 , 18 Decreased postural balance is a primary risk factor for knee joint injury. 19 Furthermore, Coughlan et al 20 recently recommended the utilization of dynamic postural balance testing as part of a weekly musculoskeletal screening assessment to
Karl Fullam, Brian Caulfield, Garrett F. Coughlan, Wayne McNulty, David Campbell and Eamonn Delahunt
Christopher M. Saliba, Allison L. Clouthier, Scott C.E. Brandon, Michael J. Rainbow and Kevin J. Deluzio
The onset and progression of knee osteoarthritis have been attributed to abnormal loading of the knee joint. 1 – 3 Clinical interventions, both surgical and noninvasive, aim to reduce medial compartment knee loads. 4 – 6 Gait retraining is a noninvasive intervention in the treatment of
Guillaume Mornieux, Elmar Weltin, Monika Pauls, Franz Rott and Albert Gollhofer
Lateral movements with changes of direction are common in many team sports such as soccer or handball. During cutting maneuvers, the athlete performs a complex dynamic task by quickly changing their direction of movement while securing their balance. Knee joint control is an essential requirement
Lei Zhou, Marie-Anne Gougeon and Julie Nantel
set at P < .05 and Tukey procedures for multiple comparisons were used when needed. Results At the knee joint, we found main effects for both groups and conditions (Table 1 ). Comparisons between groups showed a main effect in energy absorption with the knee extensor muscles (K3). On the less
Joseph M. Hart, Jamie L. Leonard and Christopher D. Ingersoll
Context:
Despite recent findings regarding lower extremity function after cryotherapy, little is known of the neuromuscular, kinetic, and kinematic changes that might occur during functional tasks.
Objective:
To evaluate changes in ground-reaction forces, muscle activity, and knee-joint flexion during single-leg landings after 20-minute knee-joint cryotherapy.
Design:
1 × 4 repeated-measures, time-series design.
Setting:
Research laboratory.
Patients or Other Participants:
20 healthy male and female subjects.
Intervention:
Subjects performed 5 single-leg landings before, immediately after, and 15 and 30 minutes after knee-joint cryo-therapy.
Main Outcome Measures:
Ground-reaction force, knee-joint flexion, and muscle activity of the gastrocnemius, hamstrings, quadriceps, and gluteus medius.
Results:
Cryotherapy did not significantly (P > .05) change maximum knee-joint flexion, vertical ground-reaction force, or average muscle activity during a single-leg landing.
Conclusion:
Knee-joint cryotherapy might not place the lower extremity at risk for injury during landing.
Jinkyu Lee, Yong-Jin Yoon and Choongsoo S. Shin
to increase the double-support time. 14 – 16 The ROM of the knee joints decreased or tended to decrease with an increase in load. 6 , 17 Harman et al 5 explained that a higher knee flexion angle could help soldiers maintain a lower center of mass (COM). However, in the ankle joints
Natalia Romero-Franco, Juan Antonio Montaño-Munuera, Juan Carlos Fernández-Domínguez and Pedro Jiménez-Reyes
knowledge no authors to date have validated the use of this methodology in the knee joint during open kinetic chain (OKC) movements, despite the lack of correlation between OKC and CKC movements 15 and the differences in patterns of muscle activities and ligament forces. 16 In this sense, the OKC
Karen Roemer, Tibor Hortobagyi, Chris Richter, Yolanda Munoz-Maldonado and Stephanie Hamilton
Although an authoritative panel recommended the use of ergometer rowing as a non-weight-bearing form of exercise for obese adults, the biomechanical characterization of ergometer rowing is strikingly absent. We examined the interaction between body mass index (BMI) relative to the lower extremity biomechanics during rowing in 10 normal weight (BMI 18–25), 10 overweight (BMI 25–30 kg·m−2), and 10 obese (BMI > 30 kg·m−2) participants. The results showed that BMI affects joint kinematics and primarily knee joint kinetics. The data revealed that high BMI leads to unfavorable knee joint torques, implying increased loads of the medial compartment in the knee joint that could be avoided by allowing more variable foot positioning on future designs of rowing ergometers.
Jonathan Sinclair, Jack Hebron and Paul J. Taylor
The principal source of measurement error in three-dimensional analyses is the definition of the joint center about which segmental rotations occur. The hip joint has received considerable attention in three-dimensional modeling analyses yet the reliability of the different techniques for the definition of the knee joint center has yet to be established. This study investigated the reliability of five different knee joint center estimation techniques: femoral epicondyle, femoral condyle, tibial ridge, plugin-gait, and functional. Twelve male participants walked at 1.25 m·s−1 and three-dimensional kinetics/kinematics of the knee and ankle were collected. The knee joint center was defined twice using each technique (test-and-retest) and the joint kinetic/kinematic data were applied to both. Wilcoxon rank tests and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were used to compare test and retest angular parameters and kinematic waveforms. The results show significant differences in coronal and transverse planes angulation using the tibial ridge, plug-in-gait, and functional methods. The strongest test-retest ICCs were observed for the femoral epicondyle and femoral condyle configurations. The findings from the current investigation advocate that the femoral epicondyle and femoral condyle techniques for the estimation of the knee joint center are currently the most reliable techniques.
Rod A. Harter, Louis R. Osternig and Kenneth M. Singer
This study evaluated knee joint position sense in the ACL-reconstructed and contralateral normal knees of 48 male and female subjects (M age 27.6 ± 6.9 yrs). Subjects were blindfolded and tested on their ability to actively reproduce five passively placed knee positions at 5° intervals between 35 and 15° of knee flexion. Mean algebraic target angle error and mean absolute error values were measured in degrees. The grand mean absolute error for the postsurgical knees at all positions was 5.4 ± 3.2°, compared with 5.2 ± 2.7° for the normal contralateral knees. There were no significant differences in knee joint position sense between the postsurgical and normal contralateral limbs at any of the five positions tested. Pivot shift, anterolateral rotatory instability, and Lachman test results were poorly correlated with knee joint position sense. The results suggest that if knee joint position sense was indeed disrupted by ACL injury and reconstructive surgery, related sensory mechanisms compensated for any proprioceptive loss prior to the minimum 2-yr postsurgical follow-up period employed in our study.
