The Effect of Short-Term Usage of Rigid Neoprene Knee Sleeve and Soft Neoprene Knee Sleeve on Knee Joint Position Sense Perception after Reconstruction Surgery of Anterior Cruciate Ligament

The aim of the present study is to compare the effect of Neoprene Knee Stabilizer and Neoprene Knee Support on knee joint position sense of patients who had a reconstruction surgery on their anterior cruciate ligament. The joint position sense was measured through the method of active reproduction trial of target angle in open kinetic chain. The target angles for knee joint flexion were set at 30, 45 and 60. 11 male patients (with average age 30.8±4.6 and average weight 75±9) were tested in three stages: 1) immediately after reconstruction surgery of anterior cruciate ligament (BPTB method) and before using knee stabilizer, 2) thirty minutes after using knee stabilizer and 3) after putting off the knee stabilizer. These three trials were conducted in 3 positions with Neoprene Knee Stabilizer and Neoprene Knee Support and in 24-hours intervals. The averages of absolute-error of target angle reproduction were statistically analyzed after 5 times of trial repetition. Statistics shows that using Neoprene Knee Stabilizer in 30° angle has a meaningful, positive effect on knee joint position sense (p<0.05). This improvement of joint position sense was lost after putting off Neoprene Knee Stabilizer.