Investigating Knee Joint Position Sense After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction in Male Soccer Players

Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury is the most common knee ligament injury during exercise, with a frequency of 36.9 per 100000 individuals. The characteristics of this injury are proprioception dysfunction. The present study aimed to investigate the knee proprioception after the reconstruction of ACL in soccer players.

The study sample of this study was 20 elite male soccer players with an ACL injury experiencing post-reconstruction. The knee joint position sense of the study subjects was measured by Isokinetic (Gymnex model) at 30°, 45°, and 60° between the operated and non-operated knee. An Independent Samples t-test was used to compare the mean scores of the measured variables at the significance level of P≤0.05.

The obtained results suggested that the mean value of the angle reproduction test at 30° on the operated knee was significantly more than that of the non-operated knee (P=0.003). Moreover, the mean value of a passive angle reproduction test was significantly more than that of the active angle test in the operated knee (P=0.001). There was no significant difference between the mean value of 45° angle repair results in the non-operated and operated knee (P=0.99). The difference between active and passive tests in the operated knee on 45° was significant; the study subjects demonstrated higher mean scores in the active test (P=0.02). Additionally, the half-value in angle reproduction in 60° in the operated knee was significantly less than that of the non-operated knee (P=0.01). Eventually, there was no significant difference between the results of the test at this angle in the passive and active angle reproduction in the affected knee (P=0.22).

The obtained data revealed that the knee joint position sense of the operated knee joint, compared to the non-operated knee in elite soccer players, along with the reconstruction of the ACL, was weaker than those of the non-operated knee.