Article

Application of cryotherapy over an injured joint has been shown to improve muscle
function, yet it is unknown how ankle cryotherapy affects postural control. Our
purpose was to determine the effects of a 20-min focal ankle joint cooling on
unipedal static stance in individuals with and without chronic ankle instability
(CAI). Fifteen young subjects with CAI (9 males, 6 females)
and 15 healthy
gender-matched controls participated. All subjects underwent two intervention
sessions on different days in which they had a 1.5L plastic bag filled with
either crushed ice (active treatment) or candy corn (sham) applied to the ankle.
Unipedal stance with eyes closed for 10s were assessed with a forceplate before
and after each intervention. Center of pressure (COP) data were used to compute
10 specific dependent measures including velocity, area, standard deviation (SD),
and percent range of COP excursions, and mean and SD of time-to-boundary (TTB)
minima in the anterior-posterior (AP) and mediolateral directions. For each
measure a three-way (Group-Intervention-Time) repeated ANOVAs found no
significant interactions and main effects involving intervention (all Ps > 0.05).
There were group main effects found for mean velocity (F(1,28) = 6.46, P = .017),
area (F(1,28) = 12.83, P = .001), and mean of TTB minima in the AP direction
(F(1,28) = 5.19, P = .031) indicating that the CAI group demonstrated greater
postural instability compared to the healthy group. Postural control of unipedal
stance was not significantly altered following focal ankle joint cooling in
groups both with and without CAI. Ankle joint cryotherapy was neither beneficial
nor harmful to single leg balance.
CI - Copyright (c) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS