Abstract Longitudinal analyses of participants with a history of lateral ankle sprain are lacking. This investigation combined measures of lower limb inter-joint coordination and stabilometry to evaluate static unipedal stance with eyes-open (condition 1) and eyes-closed (condition 2) in a group of participants with chronic ankle instability compared to ankle sprain 'copers' (both recruited 12-months after sustaining an acute first-time lateral ankle sprain) and a group of non-injured controls. Twenty-eight participants with chronic ankle instability, forty-two lateral ankle sprain 'copers' and twenty non-injured controls completed three 20-second single-limb stance trials in conditions 1 and 2. An adjusted coefficient of multiple determination statistic was used to compare stance limb 3-dimensional kinematic data for similarity in the aim of establishing patterns of inter-joint coordination. The fractal dimension of the stance limb center of pressure path was also calculated. Between-group analyses revealed that participants with chronic ankle instability displayed notable increases in ankle-hip linked coordination compared to both 'copers' (0.52 [1.05] vs -0.28 [0.9] p = 0.007) and controls (0.52 [1.05] vs -0.63 [0.64] p = 0.006) in condition 1 and to controls (0.62 [1.92] vs 0.1 [1.0]) in condition 2. Participants with chronic ankle instability also exhibited a decrease in the fractal dimension of the center-of-pressure path during condition 2 compared to both controls and 'copers'. Participants with chronic ankle instability present with a hip-dominant strategy of eyes-open and eyes-closed static unipedal stance. This coincided with reduced complexity of the stance-limb center of pressure path in the eyes-closed condition.

Url http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25830363

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