Dynamic postural control during step down task in patients with patellofemoral pain syndrome.
Mehdi Naserpour, Shahin Goharpey, Amal Saki and 1 others
PMID 30349166WHAT IT FOUND
People with patellofemoral pain took longer to steady after stepping down than healthy adults in both front-to-back and side-to-side directions.
Repetition counts did not differ. A laboratory measure detected balance difficulty that the clinical step-down count did not.
Key findings
01Patients with patellofemoral pain syndrome took longer to stabilize after stepping down from 20 cm onto a force platform than healthy controls in front-to-back and side-to-side directions.
02Mean front-to-back time to stabilization was 9.09 ± 0.82 seconds in patients with PFPS and 8.43 ± 0.79 seconds in controls; side-to-side time was 7.15 ± 2.11 seconds in patients with PFPS and 5.56 ± 1.95 seconds in controls.
03Functional step-down repetitions were 20.84 ± 4.23 in PFPS patients and 22.29 ± 2.71 in controls, and the difference was not significant (p=0.096).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study compared people with PFPS to healthy controls at one time, so it cannot show whether poor stabilization causes PFPS or results from it. Patients did not report pain during the step-down test, so the measured stabilization time may not reflect how pain changes movement. The stabilization task was a single step-down from 20 cm onto a force platform, not repeated stair descent. The sample was young adults, with mean ages 24.24 years in PFPS patients and 23.15 years in controls. The study measured group differences, not the effect of any treatment.
Declared interests
The work was supported by a Ph.D. thesis grant from the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Research Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the longer stabilization time as evidence that a step-down training programme will reduce patellofemoral pain. The study only compared patients with healthy controls during one laboratory task and did not test any treatment.