the effects of functional knee brace on postural control in patients who underwent anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

Background: the current study aimed to evaluate the postural control in patients underwent anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction pre and post wearing functional knee brace. methods: eighteen athletes undergone unilateral anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction included in the study. they had unilateral anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction at least six months before session test. postural control was assessed pre and post wearing custom-fit functional knee brace using a posturographic platform prokin 254. the balance tests included: 1) standing on prokin platform with eyes open/closed on anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction limb, 2) standing on prokin platform with eyes open/closed on both limbs. the standard deviation (sd) of body sway along the anteroposterior (ap) and mediolateral (ml) axis, mean velocity of center of pressure (cop) along ap/ ml axis and the area ellipse (measured in 2 mm) were calculated. results: results of the paired t-test revealed a significant effect on selected postural control variables for the brace conditions especially in low challengeable conditions (double leg, eyes open test situations) (p < 0.05). but in high challengeable conditions this effect was not significant. conclusions: functional knee brace improved postural control in the simple balancing task in the subjects with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. but this improvement in more difficult balancing task was limited.