Postural control following inversion injuries of the ankle.

Postural control was investigated following unilateral inversion injury of the ankle in 24 trained and 24 untrained subjects at least 8 weeks following injury and following resumption of high-speed activities. The two groups differed in the practice of balance exercises in one-legged stance during rehabilitation. Using a force platform the variability of the mediolateral force signal was used to quantify steadiness as each subject stood in one-legged stance with the eyes open and closed on the injured and noninjured legs. A three way analysis of variance showed that for the untrained subjects postural steadiness was significantly worse on the injured leg than the noninjured leg both with eyes open (p < .05) and closed (p < .05). No postural deficit was found on the injured leg of the trained subjects with eyes open or closed (p > .05). It is strongly recommended that rehabilitation following inversion injury of the ankle include balance retraining to minimize the risk of further injury.