Assessment of postural control in various knee alignments

Nowadays, many people participate in sport activities which may lead to the sport-related injuries. Postural control has an important role in injury prevention and athletic performance. The Aim of current study was to assess the balance stability among subjects with different knee alignments under jump and land on their dominant foot.
Totally, 33 healthy athletically-active females were assigned into three groups based on their knee alignment [normal knee (n=16), genu varus (n=10), genu valgus (n=7)]. To evaluate the alignment of the knee joints, the frontal plane knee angle was measured with a universal goniometer. The dynamic postural stability index was evaluated with two dynamic tasks (anterior-posterior and medial-lateral jumps) on the force plate. An independent sample t-test was to examine the differences of mean values of dynamic postural stability index between genu varus and genu valgus groups with their control groups in two jump tasks.
No significant difference was seen between groups in anterior-posterior jumps. Also, significantly higher dynamic postural index was found in the genu varus group compared to its control group in medial – lateral jump tasks (p 0.05).
The results showed that genu varus may decrease the dynamic balance. It seems that athletes with genu varus may benefit from some programs to increase their balance during dynamic activity like medial-lateral jumps.