Het effect van een patella bandje op de proprioceptie van de knie in de ongeblesseerde populatie

Introduction: Proprioception can be described as the ability of a organism to sense the position of the body and its parts. When the knee is injured, such as a Jumper’s knee, it also affects the proprioception. Improvement of the proprioceptive ability, including through training, is an accepted component for recovery from a knee injury. In the field it’s often seen that people with an injury of the patella tendon wear a patellar strap. It is thought that this strap would, among other things, improve proprioception, but this has not been proven yet. The main aim of this study is, thereby, to determine the effect of the use of a patellar strap on the proprioceptive ability of the knee in the uninjured population. In addition, this study is going to investigate whether the direction of movement and start position have an effect on the proprioception. Materials and methods: In 22 healthy subjects, the threshold to detect passive motion (TTDPM) was determined. There were two conditions, with and without a patellar strap. Each subject served as their own control, with the condition "no strap" as an internal control. Both legs were tested, from start position 20° and 40°, from where the leg was moved towards extension and towards flexion. Results: The results showed that wearing a patellar strap caused a small improvement in TTDPM by 0.03° (p = 0.003). In addition, the relationship between wearing a patellar strap and the TTDPM was significantly influenced by the direction of movement (p = 0,023). The start position, however, didn’t have this effect on this relationship. Conclusion: Wearing a patellar strap provides a small improvement of proprioception in healthy subjects. Besides that, the relationship between the TTDPM and wearing a patellar strap can be influenced by the direction of movement. However, the start position have no influence on this relationship. Further studies are needed to investigate whether a patellar strap, worn by the symptomatic population, such as patients with Jumper’s knee, causes a greater improvement of the proprioceptive ability.