Simple, Reliable & now Validated
At SSIC we believe the Single Leg Balance test is a reliable and valid test for predicting ankle sprains. Since we can (to some extent) successfully predict susceptibility to ankle injury in athletes using this simple test, we feel it is beneficial for all our patients to take.
If they do not do well in the test, we can inform them that if they don't initiate a proprioceptive rehab exercise program to improve their balance and if they don't tape their ankle or wear a brace, their risk of an ankle injury goes up by almost 9 folds!
At SSIC, we also use the Single Leg Balance test on patients with Lumbo-pelvic pain to find any significant asymmetries and deficiencies in balance. As an alternative to learning more complicated "core exercises", we believe patients will benefit from the more easily learned practise of standing on one leg with eyes open and eyes closed.
The following video is a good exercise to strengthen one leg balance.
_____________________________________
Reference:
Trojian TH, McKeag DB. Single leg balance test to identify risk of ankle sprains. Br J Sports Med 2006;40(7):610-613
This paper was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine with the aim to determine if the pre-season measures of the Single Leg Balance (SLB) test, could predict an ankle sprain during the school year of high school varsity male & female athletes.
The association between a positive Single Leg Balance test and future ankle sprains was significant with a relative risk of 2.54.
Athletes with a positive Single Leg Balance test who did not tape their ankles had an increased likelihood of developing ankle sprains, with a relative risk of 8.82.
Very surprisingly, a previous history of ankle injury was not associated with future ankle sprains in this study. (If the SLB test was good, past ankle sprain did not matter!)
The kappa value for inter-rater reliability for the SLB test was 0.898 (p<0.001), which is excellent!
