The influence of gender and sport on popliteal angle and dorsiflexion in junior high school students.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study was to assess factors affecting the popliteal angle and foot dorsiflexion, in particular gender. The subjects were 142 students from the 2nd and 3rd year of Poznan junior high schools. METHODS: The participants included 57 girls and 87 boys. Three raters examined each subject: a specialist in orthopaedics, a resident doctor and a physical therapy student. Foot dorsal flexion was tested in a supine position with lower limbs extended. Next, dorsal flexion was evaluated with the knee and hip in 90 degrees of flexion. Finally, a passive knee extension (PKE) test was carried out. The significance of the PKE test is that the lower the angle the more flexible the hamstrings. This is because the PKE measurement is the distance to the right angle, that is a full knee extension with the hip flexed. RESULTS: The non-parametric test (Mann-Whitney) and the Student's t-test showed differences between the female and male gender in the measurements of the popliteal angle (p < .05000). The correlation was negative, which means that the hamstrings are more flexible in girls. No differences were found between gender and passive foot dorsiflexion and dorsiflexion with a flexed hip and knee. No differences were found between the group with the extended PE curriculum and the group with the standard number of PE classes in the range of motion of foot dorsiflexion and the value of the popliteal angle. CONCLUSIONS: Girls between 13 and 15 years old have a significantly larger hamstring flexibility, which is confirmed by the tests of the popliteal angle. No differences were found in dorsiflexion between girls and boys who have not been trained using a training model.

The agreement and repeatability of measurements of ankle joint dorsiflexion and poplietal angle in healthy adolescents.

BACKGROUND: The intra-rater repeatability and inter-rater agreement of orthopaedics measurements are important for estimating injury risk and appropriate treatment. In clinical practice, it is often unavoidable to trust the measurements of other health professionals. METHODS: This study tested the agreement and repeatability of measurements of the dorsiflexion of the foot, dorsiflexion with 90-degrees knee flexion, and popliteal angle test in healthy adolescents performed twice by three raters differing in clinical experience. Three raters, i.e., an orthopaedics specialist (16 years of experience), a resident medical doctor in orthopaedics (4 years of experience), and a physiotherapy student (1 year of experience) measured the ankle joint dorsiflexion and the popliteal angle in 142 healthy adolescent subjects. RESULTS: The student outperformed more experienced raters by displaying good repeatability for all the evaluated parameters. The orthopaedics specialist failed to replicate the measurements of the left ankle joint passive dorsiflexion and the left popliteal angle. The medical resident in orthopaedics displayed a lack of repeatability in evaluating the right ankle joint dorsiflexion with the knee joint bent. Kendall's W value for all parameters ranged 0.66-0.78, indicating a good inter-rater agreement. CONCLUSIONS: The study highlights that measurements of the ankle joint dorsiflexion and popliteal angle test by different health professionals can generally be trusted. It indicates that novice health professionals could potentially evaluate such parameters in healthy subjects without a quality loss.

Flexibility does not affect the dorsiflexion of foot and the popliteal angle in young adults.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study was to assess how flexibility affects the dorsiflexion of foot and the popliteal angle test results in junior high school students. METHODS: The subjects were 142 students from the 2nd, and 3rd year of Poznan junior high schools (age between 13 and 15). Each subject was examined 6 times: there were 3 raters, a specialist in orthopaedics, a resident doctor and a physical therapy student, and each of them performed 2 measurements. Flexibility was also measured using the Beighton scale (score from 0 to 9). RESULTS: Since the Beighton scale is ordinal in order to evaluate the relationship between flexibility and the range of motion Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was calculated. The statistical analysis showed no correlation between flexibility measured on the Beighton scale and the range of passive foot dorsiflexion and the popliteal angle. CONCLUSIONS: The degree of flexibility does not affect the dorsiflexion of the foot and the popliteal angle in junior high students. At this age the range of dorsiflexion is determined by the length of the triceps surae muscle while the popliteal angle depends on the length of the muscles on the back of the thigh.