EFFECT OF BALANCE TRAINING ON ATHLETES WITH FUNCTIONAL ANKLE INSTABILITY OF ANKLE JOINT
Authors:   Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Madurai Medical College & Government Rajaji Hospital, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India., Scindia G.K. , Suganthi S. ,   Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Government Thanjavur Medical College & Hospital, Thanjavur, Tamilnadu, India.
Published: March 2022

Introduction: The ankle is an amazing structure because it helps transfer vertical to horizontal weight bearing and rarely deteriorates over the course of a life time.This study aims to find out the prevalence of functional ankle instability in athletes and to determine the effect of posturography training on balance in athletes with functional ankle joint instability. Material and Methods: This study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase after obtaining the informed consent, a descriptive study was conducted among 453 students from the Department of Physical Education and were included in the study to determine the prevalence of functional ankle instability (FAI). The study participants were distributed with Modified Ankle Instability Instrument questionnaire with brief explanation about the questionnaire and the prevalence of FAI was studied. Modified ankle instability instrument has high reliability,feasible and has appropriate way to obtain information on the presence of instability symptoms.21It contains 11 yes/no type questions.9 questions focus on ankle injury,last 2 questions focus on knee for exclusion purpose.12 questionnaires were found to be incomplete and the remaining 441 completed questionnaires were taken for data analysis.Among the 441 questionnaires,207 was excluded as they have knee and leg injuries.With the remaining 234, 43 athletes have FAI with the prevalence of 18.4%.From them, 39 athletes entered phase II and were given balance training using a commercially available device, Posturograph-the Biodex Balance Stability System (BSS) (Biodex, Inc., Shirley, New York). Results: The prevalence of FAI was 18.4% in the present study.The most common age group of the present study was 21-25 years(52.2%). Male participants (58.5%) were outnumbered female participants(41.5%). Most of the athletes had normal BMI.Underweight population was 20.4% and overweight was 5.9%. The common events participated by the athletes of the present study were football (25.85%),basketball (14.51%) and volley ball (12.24%).Of the total 441 participants ,207 (46.9%) had associated knee and leg injuries and hence was not taken for analysis.There is no association found between FAI in relation to gender game - wise as demonstrated in the above table.There was significant association observed between FAI and BMI for football and hockey players ( = 6.195, p =0.045).There is significant difference in anterior reach distance,posteromedial and posterolateral reach distance between affected and normal ankle at baseline (p <0.05) Conclusion: The present study results showed that balance training with posturograph effectively improved the functional ankle instability in athletes and also enhances the stability of the normal ankle. In addition, the balance training may increase patients interest and participation rate in treatment more than existing therapy methods.