electrogoniometer

Proprioception, or joint position sense, probably plays an important role in joint function. A number of studies have shown that proper joint position sense can decrease the risk of injuries in sports. It is not very clear how patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) can affect athletes joint position sense (JPS). Regarding the importance of proper joint position sense for movement performance and injury prevention in athletes, the aim of this study was to evaluate knee JPS in athletes with PFPS and compare it with asymptomatic individuals under non-weight bearing (sitting) conditions.
The study design was comparative in which 15 patients and 15 healthy athletes participated. JPS was evaluated by active and passive replication of knee angles for 30, 45 and 60° of knee flexion target angle while visual cues were eliminated. Each test was repeated three times. By subtracting the test angle from the replicated angle, the absolute error was calculated as a dependent variable. T-statistical test was used to compare data between two groups and P value of 0.05 was considered as the level of statistical significance.
No significant difference (P According to results, both groups had the same JPS ability, it seems PFPS does not affect the knee JPS at least in athlete cases. It would be possible that deficiency of JPS compensated for the physical activity or on the other hand, maybe pain intensity was not high enough to interfere with JPS accuracy. According to our results, PFPS doesn’t reduce IPS but further investigation is needed to disclose if other factors such as skill level, intensity of pain or joint pathology are effective on JPS accuracy or not.

To examine the intra-rater reliability of knee movement data in sagital plane obtained from electrogoniometer (EGM) in a basic, sport-specific task of karate. A total of 23 elite karate athletes (13 females and 10 males; mean age of 16.10±1.26 yrs) participated in this study. The task was defined as performing three consecutive Zenkutsu-dachi in two sessions. The used EGM was a twin axis of Biometrics company. EGM curves were plotted in MATLAB software separately. The indices of three points in the plots corresponding to extremes of flexion and extension of knee in the first dachi were determined. There was also another (forth) point which was not in extremes of movement. As it was repeated in all curves, it was perceived as a biomechanical event and was assessed. The phases of movement between the points were scaled between 0 to 100% of activity. Repeatability of the forth point index was assessed by intraclass correlation method. Intraclass correlation of the ratio in the first testing session was 0.666 and in second was 0.448. The interval between points were considered as phases of movement. After determining three phases of dachi, it was shown that these phases pertained a specific ratio of the total plot which were 48%, 36% and 16% of total respectively. Dachi could be divided into three distinct phases; each of them should constitute a specific percent of the total in an elite athlete.