Differences in health-related quality of life among patients after ankle injury.

Ankle sprains are the most common injuries sustained in the physically active, often associated with pain and functional limitations long after initial recovery. In recent years, the impact of ankle sprains on general health and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) has been noted in athletes, but is not well-documented in the general population. We examined differences in HRQoL and general health between individuals with ankle sprain history and healthy controls.

Knee Surgery Is Associated With Greater Odds of Knee Osteoarthritis Diagnosis.

Context: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) frequently develops following knee injury/surgery. It is accepted that knee injury/surgery precipitates OA with previous studies examining this link in terms of years after injury/surgery. However, postinjury OA prevalence has not been examined by decade of life; thereby, limiting our understanding of the age at which patients are diagnosed with posttraumatic knee OA.

Benefits of and barriers to using patient-rated outcome measures in athletic training.

Context: Patient-rated outcome measures (PROMs) are important for driving treatment decisions and determining treatment effectiveness. However, athletic trainers (ATs) rarely use them; understanding why may facilitate strategies for collection of these outcomes.

Objective: To identify the benefits of and barriers to using PROMs in athletic training.

A learner-centered technique and clinical reasoning, reflection, and case presentation attributes in athletic training students.

Context: Providing opportunities to develop clinical decision-making skills, including clinical reasoning, is an important aspect of clinical education. The learner-centered technique of summarizing the history and findings, narrowing the differential, analyzing the differential, probing the instructor about uncertainties, plan management, and selecting an issue for self-directed study (SNAPPS) is used in medicine to express clinical reasoning.

Objective: To investigate the effects of SNAPPS on the clinical reasoning, reflection, and 4 case presentation attributes (length, conciseness, case summary, and expression of clinical reasoning) in athletic training students.

Clinical assessment of low-back-pain treatment outcomes in athletes.

Unlabelled: PATIENT SCENARIO: A 21-year-old male rodeo athlete complains of acute low back pain (LBP) after a bareback event. The athlete wishes to compete in a rodeo event in 4 d. CLINICAL OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT: Given the questionable validity and reliability of traditional clinical examination techniques for LBP, a treatment subgroup classification system combined with clinical outcomes assessment provides greater insight into suitable clinical interventions and patient response to treatment.

The Disablement in the Physically Active Scale, part II: the psychometric properties of an outcomes scale for musculoskeletal injuries.

Context: Outcomes assessment is an integral part of ensuring quality in athletic training, but few generic instruments have been specifically designed to measure disablement in the physically active.

Objective: To assess the psychometric properties of the Disablement in the Physically Active Scale (DPA), a patient-report, generic outcomes instrument.

Design: Observational study.

Transient disablement in the physically active with musculoskeletal injuries, part I: a descriptive model.

Context: Disablement theory has been characterized as the sequence of events that occurs after an injury, but little research has been conducted to establish how disablement is experienced and described by physically active persons.

Objective: To describe the disablement process in physically active persons with musculoskeletal injuries.

Design: Concurrent, embedded mixed-methods study.

Evidence-based sports medicine: outcomes instruments for active populations.

Clear and directed outcomes assessment is an integral part of clinical decision making. For sports medicine clinicians, it is crucial to choose appropriate instruments that are grounded in disablement theory, designed to measure the ability of a physically active population, and have established psychometric properties. Although there is no instrument ideal for every situation in sports medicine, there are important guidelines that a clinician can follow that will allow for the selection of an appropriate instrument.

Prophylactic Ankle Taping and Bracing: A Numbers-Needed-to-Treat and Cost-Benefit Analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Taping and bracing are thought to decrease the incidence of ankle sprains; however, few investigators have addressed the effect of preventive measures on the rate of ankle sprains. Our purpose was to examine the effectiveness of ankle taping and bracing in reducing ankle sprains by applying a numbers-needed-to-treat (NNT) analysis to previously published studies. DATA SOURCES: We searched PubMed, CINAHL, SPORT Discus, and PEDro for original research from 1966 to 2002 with key words ankle taping, ankle sprains, injury incidence, prevention, ankle bracing, ankle prophylaxis, andnumbers needed to treat.