Essay On Knee Braces

Recent research declares knee injuries as one of the most common injuries observed in sports.(1/1) Knee injuries stand out as one of the most prevalent injuries to occur in American football.(2/3) Knee injuries often result in surgery or discontinued practice for an extended period of time, which has the potential to be harmful to an athlete’s career. In hopes of reducing the incidence of knee injury, sports medicine professionals created prophylactic knee braces. Initially made with the intent to prevent and curb future knee injuries, prophylactic braces are used by many athletes. Due to their increased use, researchers have dedicated large amounts of time and money to determine the effectiveness of prophylactic knee braces. Many researchers believe that prophylactic knee braces do not have any effect on preventing injury. Furthermore, some have additionally stated …show more content…
found that prophylactic knee braces do not increase stability of the knee joint or aid in injury prevention. The study included 23 male athletes from the Pennsylvania State University intramural football team. All subjects selected met specific criteria to ensure that the subject pool represented the population of athletes that wear prophylactic knee braces. The criteria specified that all subjects completed a minimum of two years of high school varsity football, had no previous knee injuries, and had no previous experience wearing knee braces. Four conditions were tested in the study: (1) a group wearing the Anderson Knee Stabler101W, (2) a group wearing the Don Joy-PKG, (3) a group wearing the McDavid, and (4) a group with no brace. The subjects underwent testing in all four groups and because of this, the subjects could serve as their own controls. Seven days later, the researchers retested 10 randomly selected subjects from the 23 male participants using the same protocol as they previously used. This served to prove the study’s test-retest