Inter-joint coordination strategies during unilateral stance following first-time, acute lateral ankle sprain: A brief report

• Participants with an acute ankle sprain display hip-dominant strategies of postural control during a single limb stance task.
• These hip-dominant strategies are evident both in the eyes open and eyes closed conditions.
• These strategies were associated with significantly greater range joint movement at the hip and ankle.
• Similar findings were evident in this cohort, six-months after they sustained the initial ankle sprain.
• Clinicians must consider the potential persistence of postural control impairment following an initial acute ankle sprain.

BackgroundThis investigation combined measures of inter-joint coordination and stabilometry to evaluate eyes-open (condition 1) and eyes-closed (condition 2) static unilateral stance performance in a group of participants with an acute, first-time lateral ankle sprain injury in comparison to a control group.MethodsSixty-six participants with an acute first-time lateral ankle sprain and 19 non-injured controls completed three 20-second unilateral stance task trials in conditions 1 and 2. An adjusted coefficient of multiple determination statistic was used to compare stance limb 3-D kinematic data for similarity in the aim of establishing patterns of inter-joint coordination for these groups.FindingsBetween-group analyses revealed significant differences in stance limb inter-joint coordination strategies for conditions 1 and 2. Injured participants displayed increases in ankle-hip linked coordination compared to controls in condition 1 (sagittal/frontal plane: 0.12 [0.09] vs 0.06 [0.04]; η2 = .16) and condition 2 (sagittal/frontal plane: 0.18 [0.13] vs 0.08 [0.06]; η2 = 0.37).InterpretationParticipants with acute first-time lateral ankle sprain exhibit a hip-dominant coordination strategy for static unilateral stance compared to non-injured controls.