Comparing Knee Joint Position Sense in Patellofemoral Pain and Healthy Futsal Women

Abstract

Background: Proprioception, or joint position sense, probably plays animportant role in joint function. A number of studies have shown that properjoint position sense can decrease the risk of injuries in sports. It is not very clearhow patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) can affect athletes joint position sense(JPS). Regarding the importance of proper joint position sense for movementperformance and injury prevention in athletes, the aim of this study was toevaluate knee JPS in athletes with PFPS and compare it with asymptomaticindividuals under non-weight bearing (sitting) conditions.Methods: The study design was comparative in which 15 patients and 15 healthyathletes participated. JPS was evaluated by active and passive replication of kneeangles for 30, 45 and 60° of knee flexion target angle while visual cues wereeliminated. Each test was repeated three times. By subtracting the test anglefrom the replicated angle, the absolute error was calculated as a dependentvariable. T-statistical test was used to compare data between two groups andP value of 0.05 was considered as the level of statistical significance.Results: No significant difference (P<0.05) in active (A) and passive (P) kneeJPS was found between two groups for three (30°, p-value (A =0.79, P=0.68), 45°,P value (A=0.12, P=0.54) and 60°, P value (A=0.74, P=0.71)) target angles.Conclusion: According to results, both groups had the same JPS ability, it seemsPFPS does not affect the knee JPS at least in athlete cases. It would be possiblethat deficiency of JPS compensated for the physical activity or on the otherhand, maybe pain intensity was not high enough to interfere with JPS accuracy.According to our results, PFPS doesn’t reduce IPS but further investigation isneeded to disclose if other factors such as skill level, intensity of pain or jointpathology are effective on JPS accuracy or not.