Effects of Star Excursion Balance Training on Ankle Functional Stability via Agility Hop Test in Patients with Unilateral Chronic Ankle Instability

The high prevalence of Unilateral Chronic Ankle Instability (UCAI) in human society and particularly in athletes, and possibility of its related side effects to become chronic led to decrease their ability to fulfill the expected roles in different aspects of life. So, in order to return them back to sport activities, a reliable functional test is needed.Hence, the purpose of this research program was decided to study the effect of Star Excursion Balance Training (SEBT) on the distance reached by the uninvolved leg while standing on the involved leg, and its effect on dynamic balance of subjects with UCAI via agility hop test.Subjects and Twenty four patients with UCAI, were randomly assigned to the study and were divided into two groups of 12 subjects. The control and test group participants underwent the conventional and modern physical therapy interventions respectively. Comparison of results regarding the SEBT scores of the test group is witness of improvement of dynamic balance in these patient. These results suggest that despite the improvement that was shown with respect to increase in the reached distance by the unaffected leg, the significant difference between two treatment methods, was evident only in 4 out of 8 directions of anterior, anteromedial, posterior and posteromedial (P≤0.05 respectively). Descriptive and analytic (independent t- test) was carried out by SPSS 15 software. Result of this present study revealed the fact that both PT intervention programs were effective in improvement of the dynamic balance of patients with UCAI. However, a significant difference between two intervention programs regarding the reached distance is evident from the session 10 to 12 in 4 directions. So, in order to consider a significant difference between these two intervention programs, it might be essential to increase the number of treatment sessions to more than 12.