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The Effect of Knee Braces on Tibial Rotation in Anterior Cruciate Ligament – Deficient Knees During High Demand Athletic Activities


Dimitrios P. Giotis, MD, PhD
GREECE

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The Effect of Knee Braces on Tibial Rotation in Anterior Cruciate Ligament – Deficient Knees During High Demand Athletic Activities

Dimitrios P. Giotis, MD, PhD, GREECE Frantzeska Zampeli, MD, PhD, GREECE Evangelos Pappas, PT, PhD, OCS, AUSTRALIA Grigorios Mitsionis, GREECE Pericles P. Papadopoulos, Prof., GREECE Anastasios D. Georgoulis, MD, Prof., GREECE

Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Center, Ioannina, GREECE

2013 Congress   Paper Abstract   2013 Congress   Not yet rated

 

Anatomic Location

Knee

Anatomic Structure

Ligaments

Diagnosis / Condition

Instability

Sports Medicine

Biomechanics

Ligaments

ACL

Summary: Knee bracing decreases the excessive tibial rotation in ACL-deficient patients during high-stress activities, although does not fully restore normative values level. If knee braces can enhance rotational knee stability in ACL-deficient patients then they could possibly play an important role in preventing further knee pathology in such patients.

Purpose

To examine if bracing could considerably restrict tibial rotation in ACL-deficient patients during high loading activities.

Methods

21 male subjects with a unilateral ACL rupture were assessed in vivo. Kinematic data were collected with an 8-camera optoelectronic system while each patient performed two tasks where increased rotational and translational loads were applied on the knee, (1) descending from a stair and subsequent pivoting, and (2) landing from a platform and subsequent pivoting, under three conditions for the deficient knee: (A) wearing a prophylactic brace (braced condition), (B) wearing a patellofemoral brace (sleeved condition) (C) without brace (unbraced condition); whether for the intact knee only without brace.

Results

In both tasks, tibial rotation was significantly lower in the intact knee compared to all three conditions of the ACL-deficient knee (p=0.031). Bracing the ACL-deficient knee resulted in lower rotation than the unbraced (p=0.001) and sleeved (p=0.033) conditions. The sleeved condition resulted in lower tibial internal rotation in the drop landing and pivoting task (p=0.019) but not in the stair descending and pivoting task (p=0.256).

Conclusions

Bracing decreased the excessive tibial rotation in ACL-injured patients during high-stress activities, but failed to fully restore normative values level.

Clinical Relevance:
If knee braces can enhance rotational knee stability in ACL-deficient patients then they could possibly play an important role in preventing further knee pathology in such patients.