Poster Presentation

Paper ID : 1922-SSRC

¹Shomal university

²Sport Injuries

Background: Lower limb injuries in footballers and subsequent complications, such as the risk of Osteoarthritis(OA), after ACL rapture, have become a significant concern. Well validated screening tools are essential in developing optimal preventive strategy. The usefulness of Modified Vertical Drop Jump test (MVDJ) for predicting lower limb injuries in footballers is not well investigated yet. Objective: Evaluation of modified Vertical Drop Jump test score for predicting lower limb injuries in professional footballers. Methods: 121 male professional footballers (Mean±SD, age 22.78±4.60 years, weight 72.45±6.26 kg, height 180.02±5.09 cm) completed MVDJ at pre-season in a prospective cohort study design. Athletes were followed for one football season. All lower limb injuries were recorded by contacting the team doctor and using an online form. Logistic regression was used to investigate the relationship between MVDJ and lower limb injuries in professional footballers (The statistical significance level=.05). Result: Significant correlation was found between MVDJ and lower limb injuries in professional footballers (r=.45 p< .05). The overall model created through logistic regression explained 22% of the variation in lower limb injuries, indicating that the predictions are relatively reliable. ROC analysis indicates the acceptable performance of MVDJ (AUC = 0.659). Also, the optimal cut-off point of 0.5 was estimated meaning that footballers whose scores are higher than 0.5 are prone to lower limb injuries. Conclusion: Evaluation of knee biomechanics via MVDJ is a suitable strategy to identify footballers prone to injury in the pre-season. Researchers and sports medicine professionals can use this simple and low-cost tool in clinical settings to acquire optimal preventive strategies.

&ldquo; Screening,&rdquo; neuromuscular,&rdquo; knee biomechanics,&rdquo; vertical drop jump,&rdquo; lower limb injuries,&rdquo; Football