The effect of prefabricated ankle orthoses on balance in athletes with chronic ankle instability in fatigue condition

Introduction: Lateral ankle sprain accounts for 10-28% of all sport injuries. Most of the people with lateral ankle sprain never fully recover and almost 80% of basketball players suffer from repeated ankle injuries. Balance will be distributed in most cases. In addition, athletes can become fatigued physically during competition; this can lead to recurrent ankle sprain when (s) he suffers from previous sprain as one of the orthosis functions is injury prevention, the aim of present study was to examine the effect of prefabricated ankle orthoses on balance in athletes with chronic ankle instability in fatigue condition. Materials and Methods: Twenty basketball players with chronic ankle instability (CAI) and fifteen non-injured athletes participated in this study. Balance was measured for all subjects in normal and fatigue conditions using Biodex Balance System. The three testing conditions included a soft ankle support, spiral spring ankle support, and no orthosis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the data and the significance level was set at P < 0.05. Results: this study investigated that the pre-fabricated orthoses could improve balance in healthy athletes and athletes with CAI, in fatigue condition (P < 0.05). Conclusion: As the prefabricated orthoses has a positive influence on balance ability in experienced athletes these assistive devices can be used to prevent further sport injuries. Keywords: Prefabricated orthosis, Fatigue, Ankle instability, Balance