Measures of Agility and Single-Legged Balance as Clinical Assessments in Patients With Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction and Healthy Individuals

Context: Current clinical assessments used for patients with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) may not enable clinicians to properly identify functional deficits that have been found in laboratory studies. Establishing muscular-function assessments, through agility and balance tasks, that can properly differentiate individuals with ACLR from healthy, active individuals may permit clinicians to detect deficits that increase the risk for poor outcomes. Objective: To compare lower extremity agility and balance between patients with ACLR and participants serving as healthy controls. Design: Case-control study. Setting: Controlled laboratory. Patients or Other Participants: A total of 47 volunteers in 2 groups, ACLR (9 males, 11 females; age = 23.28 +/- 5.61 years, height = 173.52 +/- 8.89 cm, mass = 70.67 +/- 8.89 kg) and control (13 males, 12 females; age = 23.00 +/- 6.44, height = 172.50 +/- 9.24, mass = 69.81 +/- 10.87 kg). Main Outcome Measure(s): Participants performed 3 timed agility tasks: Agility T Test, 17-hop test, and mat-hopping test. Balance was assessed in single-legged (SL) stance in 3 positions (straight knee, bent knee, squat) on 2 surfaces (firm, foam) with the participants' eyes open or closed for 10-second trials. Agility tasks were measured for time to completion. Eyes-open balance tasks were measured using center-of-pressure average velocity, and eyes-closed balance tasks were measured using the Balance Error Scoring System. Results: For the Agility T Test, the ACLR group had slower times than the control group (P = .05). Times on the Agility T Test demonstrated moderate to strong positive relationships for unipedal measures of agility. The ACLR group had greater center-of-pressure average velocity in the SL bent-knee position than the control group. No differences were found between groups for the SL straight-knee and SL-squat balance tasks (P > .05). No differences in errors were present between groups for the eyes-closed balance tasks (P > .05). Conclusions: The ACLR group demonstrated slower bipedal agility times and decreased postural stability when assessed in an SL bent-knee position compared with the control group.