rss
Br J Sports Med 2009;43:417-422 doi:10.1136/bjsm.2009.059162
  • Original article

Video analysis of trunk and knee motion during non-contact anterior cruciate ligament injury in female athletes: lateral trunk and knee abduction motion are combined components of the injury mechanism

  1. T E Hewett1,
  2. J S Torg2,
  3. B P Boden3
  1. 1
    Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
  2. 2
    University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
  3. 3
    The Orthopaedic Center, Rockville, Maryland, USA
  1. T E Hewett, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, USA; tim.hewett{at}cchmc.org
  • Accepted 31 March 2009
  • Published Online First 15 April 2009

Abstract

Background: The combined positioning of the trunk and knee in the coronal and sagittal planes during non-contact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury has not been previously reported.

Hypothesis: During ACL injury female athletes demonstrate greater lateral trunk and knee abduction angles than ACL-injured male athletes and uninjured female athletes.

Design: Cross-section control-cohort design.

Methods: Analyses of still captures from 23 coronal (10 female and 7 male ACL-injured players and 6 female controls) or 28 sagittal plane videos performing similar landing and cutting tasks. Significance was set at p≤0.05.

Results: Lateral trunk and knee abduction angles were higher in female compared to male athletes during ACL injury (p≤0.05) and trended toward being greater than female controls (p = 0.16, 0.13, respectively). Female ACL-injured athletes showed less forward trunk lean than female controls (mean (SD) initial contact (IC): 1.6 (9.3)° vs 14.0 (7.3)°, p≤0.01).

Conclusion: Female athletes landed with greater lateral trunk motion and knee abduction during ACL injury than did male athletes or control females during similar landing and cutting tasks.

Clinical relevance: Lateral trunk and knee abduction motion are important components of the ACL injury mechanism in female athletes as observed from video evidence of ACL injury.

Footnotes

  • Competing interests: None.

  • Funding: This work was supported in part by NIH/NIAMS grants R01 AR049735, R01 AR05563 and R01 AR056259 (TEH).

  • Ethics approval: Ethics approval was obtained.

  • ‣ Additional data (Supplementary figure 1) are published online only at http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/vol43/issue6

This Article

  1. Abstract
  2. Full text
  3. PDF
  4. All versions of this article:
    1. bjsm.2009.059162v1
    2. 43/6/417 most recent

Responses

  1. Submit a response
  2. No responses published

Register for free content

The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.

Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.