Abstract:

Objective To explore the effect of exercise on the postural control and muscular function around the ankle in patients with functional ankle instability (FAI) with meta-analysis.

Methods Randomized controlled trials about therapeutic exercise for FAI published before December, 2021 were searched from PubMed, EBSCO, SPORTdiscus, Medline, Science Direct, Springlink, Web of Science, Embase CNKI, VIP and Wanfang Data. The quality and evidence grades of the researches were evaluated by two researchers, and the outcomes were analyzed with RevMan 5.4.

Results Fourteen randomized controlled trials were finally included, involving 434 subjects. Compared with no exercise intervention, therapeutic exercise might significantly improve the movement of center of pressure whether with eye-open or eye-closed (eye-open, SMD = -0.28, 95%CI -0.46 to -0.09, P= 0.003; eye-closed, SMD = -0.24, 95%CI -0.40 to -0.09, P = 0.001); while therapeutic exercise might also enhance the activation of the peroneus longus before dynamic task (SMD = 0.38, 95%CI 0.05 to 0.71, P = 0.03), and activation of the peroneus longus (SMD = 0.53, 95%CI 0.16 to 0.90, P = 0.005) and tibialis anterior (SMD = 0.47, 95%CI 0.10 to 0.84, P = 0.01) after dynamic task. There was neither significant difference in the activation of the tibialis anterior (SMD = 0.48, 95%CI -0.14 to 1.11, P = 0.13), nor the peak torque ratio of eversion to inversion isokinetic strength (SMD = -0.15, 95%CI -0.46 to 0.16, P= 0.340) before dynamic task between the two groups.

Conclusion Therapeutic exercise can decrease movement of center of pressure, enable anticipatory contraction of peroneus longus before dynamic tasks and compensatory contraction of peroneus longus and tibialis anterior after tasks, to make it easier to deal with external interference, maintain articular stability and prevent re-injury.

Key words: functional ankle instability, postural control, muscular function, exercise, meta-analysis