Immediate Effect of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Protective Knee Taping on Knee Landing Mechanics and Muscle Activations during Side Hops.

Athletic taping is widely used in sports to prevent injury. However, the effect of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) protective taping on neuromuscular control during dynamic tasks remains unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the immediate effect of ACL protective taping on landing mechanics and muscle activations during side hops in healthy individuals. Fifteen healthy individuals (11 males and 4 females; age, 23.1 ± 1.4 years; height, 175.1 ± 10.4 cm; weight, 66.3 ± 11.2 kg) volunteered to participate in this study. Landing mechanics and muscle activations were measured while each participant performed single-leg hops side-to-side for ten repetitions with and without taping. An optical motion capture system and two force plates were used to collect the kinematic and kinetic data during the side hops. Surface electromyogram recordings were performed using a wireless electromyography system. Paired t-tests were performed to determine the differences in landing mechanics and muscle activations between the two conditions (taping and non-taping). The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. Compared with the non-taping condition, participants landed with a smaller knee abduction angle, greater knee external rotation angle, and smaller knee extensor moment in the taping condition. Given that greater knee abduction, internal rotation, and knee extension moment are associated with a greater risk of ACL injury, our findings suggest that ACL protective taping can have an immediate effect on dynamic knee stability. Clinicians should consider using ACL protective taping to facilitate the use of favorable landing mechanics for ACL injuries.

Knee Support-based Study on Sit to Stand Transfer Trajectory of Human Body / 中国康复理论与实践

Objective:To study the human body's sit to stand transfer trajectory and kinematics based on knee joint support to provide a basis for designing the transfer aid with knee joint support. Methods:From April to June, 2019, 20 healthy volunteers were recruited and divided into three groups according to height and gender. Under the premise of knee support, the sit to stand transfer experiments with 20 cm and 30 cm between feet were conducted respectively. All subjects were repeated twice for each experiment with an interval of one minute. High-definition camera was used to record the motion trajectories of each subject's shoulder (armpit) and knee joint during the experiment, and the kinematics rules of subjects with different heights and masses were analyzed. Results:The body forward leaning displacement was less with 20 cm between feet than with 30 cm for subjects less than 172 cm tall; and was less with 30 cm than with 20 cm for subjects more than 173 cm tall. The forward flexion displacement of trunk was less with 20 cm between feet than with 30 cm for subjects with body mass index (BMI) < 23.9 kg/m2; and was less with 30 cm than with 20 cm for subjects with BMI > 23.9 kg/m2. The average time during sit to stand transfer was (1.7±0.05) s. Conclusion:In the process of sit to stand transfer, distance between feet may affect the way of joint extension, the body forward leaning distance and the forward flexion displacement of trunk. With the increase of height and mass, appropriate increase of distance between feet can reduce the difficulty of sit to stand transfer. With the increase of BMI, the time of sit to stand transfer also increases. The time spent on sit to stand transfer is more in female than in male.