Ankle Movement Pattern Variation during Walking in People with Functional Ankle Instability: A Review Article

It is known that one of the most important findings in people with functional ankle instability is change of joint kinematic before ankle's contact during walking, thus it is acceptable that change in joint kinematic can be considered as one of the probable reasons of sprained ankle relapse. Although the mechanic of foot and ankle play a significant role in the occurrence of this injury, it fails to completely expose mechanisms hidden in functional ankle instability. For this reason, today, researchers have suggested that improper variation in neuromuscular control plays a more important role in the occurrence of ankle functional instability. The present article was carried out to review the literature on variation of ankle joint movement pattern and neuromuscular control strategies in individuals with functional ankle instability.
The survey was performed on articles in credible databases such as ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and Pubmed Medline, searching for the terms functional ankle instability, variability, walking gait, neuromuscular control, during 1960 to 2016. A total of 65 articles with direct relevance were selected for the analysis.
Results reported in the studies conducted regarding identification of mechanisms hidden in functional ankle instability suggest disparity between dynamic nonlinear view and linear view. These studies showed that kinematic consideration of this phenomenon cannot, per se, be practical in the occurrence of functional ankle instability due to complexity of neuromuscular control phenomenon and combinatory role of open and close mechanisms. Thus, further investigation is required to study neuromuscular control strategies in people with functional ankle instability.