Knee-Joint Position Sense: The Relationship between Open and Closed Kinetic Chain Tests
Context:Authors have investigated knee joint-position sense (JPS) in non-weight-bearing open kinetic chain (OKC) manner, but few have investigated JPS during closed kinetic chain (CKC) weight-bearing activities or the relationship between these two.Objective:To investigate the relationship between knee JPS during OKC and CKC maneuvers.Design:2-group (men and women) repeated-measures.Setting:Biomechanics laboratory.Participants:80 asymptomatic subjects.Interventions:None.Main Outcome Measure:Absolute error score of knee JPS during 2 conditions, a CKC squat or OKC knee-flexion maneuver.Results:Statistical analysis by 2-way ANOVA showed sex not to have a significant effect on error score (P= .475), but statistically significant differences between error scores occurred during the 2 tests (P= .0001), the CKC test producing lower error scores (group mean absolute error score OKC [5.6° ± 4.3°] and CKC [2.8° ± 2.4°]), with the absence of a correlation between scores of each test (r= .1).Conclusion:Testing JPS in a CKC scenario would seem appropriate—the ability is greatest (least errors), and conversely any deficits might be most obvious.