Balance training may help prevent ankle sprains

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Athletes who have suffered an ankle sprain can significantly cut their chances of spraining their ankle again by doing balance exercises, a study from the Netherlands shows.

Ankle sprains are common and costly injuries. In the United States, an estimated 23,000 people sprain their ankle every day, while in the Netherlands, an estimated 234,000 ankle sprains are suffered annually, costing more than 84 million euros. Athletes are at high risk of repeat injury in the first year after an ankle sprain.

In the July 10th online issue of the British Medical Journal, Dr. Willem van Mechelen from VU Medical Center, Amsterdam and colleagues report that an unsupervised, in-home 8-week training program made up of a series of exercises to improve balance and motor coordination skills is effective in preventing re-injury to the ankle.

They studied 522 athletes (274 men and 248 women) between 12 and 70 years old who had suffered a sprained ankle in the 2 months before entering the study. All of them received usual rehabilitative care for an ankle sprain and an "intervention" group of 256 athletes also performed three 30-minute balance training sessions per week as part of their warm-up for their normal sporting activity. The exercises, such as balancing on a balance board, got progressively more difficult.

Over the course of 1 year, fewer athletes in the intervention group than the usual care group sprained their ankle again -- 56 (22%) athletes in the intervention group versus 89 (33%) in the usual care group re-sprained their ankle.

Balance training was associated with a 35% reduction in the risk of recurrent ankle sprains compared to the control group, the researchers report.

One repeat ankle sprain, they note, was prevented for every nine athletes who completed the balance training program. The balance training program was particularly effective in athletes whose original ankle sprain was not medically treated.

SOURCE: British Medical Journal, online July 10, 2009.