The Functional Movement Screen: Prediction of Injury Prevalence in Division-I Male Basketball Players throughout a Competitive Season

Collegiate athletes are at an increased injury risk compared to non-athletes due to frequency, intensity, force exposure, and duration of athletic events and physical activity. Traditionally, pre-participation screens identify athletes at risk of cardiovascular or respiratory conditions and not those at risk of orthopedic injury. The Functional Movement Screen (FMS) aims to identify individuals who lack proper movement sequencing and control, potentially resulting in injury. The FMS is relatively new; only a few studies are available for comparison. Developing trends indicate a score of 14 as the accepted cutoff for injury risk. An individual score of 14 or lower indicates four times greater risk than an individual score greater than 14. Normative values are unavailable for Division-I male basketball players. Purpose: To screen NCAA Division-I male basketball athletes using the FMS and report descriptive values. Procedure: Thirteen athletes volunteered, signing IRB-approved documentation. Before the competitive season, all athletes reported for screening and completed the associated 7 skills and 3 clearing tests. Two investigators (Dodd and Maghrabi) instructed participants on skill completion; two investigators (Dawson and Erdmann) recorded scores. Throughout the season, one investigator communicated with the team athletic trainer to record if any participant missed time due to injury. Results: Participants scores ranged between 8 and 17; average score: 13.38 (2.50). Discussion: Average score was below the suggested cutoff value of 14. A t-test comparison between pre-season scores among those who sustained injury (average score = 13.00) and those who did not (average score = 13.56) were not significantly different (t=-0.356, p=0.729). Conclusion: Although limits in sample size create the inability to fully generalize to a collegiate basketball population, the data provide insight to the standard movement quality of Division-I male basketball players. This supports the notion that athletes with lower scores tend to get injured more frequently