POSTURAL CONTROL FOLLOWING INVERSION INJURIES OF THE ANKLE

Postural control was investigated following unilateral inversion injur y of the ankle in 24 trained and 24 untrained subjects at least 8 week s following injury and following resumption of high-speed activities. The two groups differed in the practice of balance exercises in one-le gged stance during rehabilitation. Using a force platform the variabil ity of the mediolateral force signal was used to quantify steadiness a s each subject stood in one-legged stance with the eyes open and close d on the injured and noninjured legs. A three way analysis of variance showed that for the untrained subjects postural steadiness was signif icantly worse on the injured leg than the noninjured leg both with eye s open (p <.05) and closed (p <.05). No postural deficit was found on the injured leg of the trained subjects with eyes open or dosed (p >.0 5). It is strongly recommended that rehabilitation following inversion injury of the ankle include balance retraining to minimize the risk o f further injury. (C) 1994 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitat ion