Do Ankle Braces Actually Work?
Source:
McGuine, Timothy, Alison Brooks, and Scott Hetzel. "The Effect of Lace-up Ankle Braces on Injury Rates in High School Basketball Players." The American Journal of Sports Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
Date:
October 20th, 2015
Analysis:
At one point, we have all wondered, does this medicine work? Does this treatment actually benefit me? Will this brace actually prevent me from getting injured? These are all questions that can be applied to Sports Medicine, and the effectiveness of treatment is something that many of us refrain from questioning. This article explores the true effect of ankle braces on the rates of injury in high school basketball. As the year progresses, this research is something I can incorporate in my research speech as well as my original work. However, as this specific research is more of an experiment than an article, it is important to keep in mind that the statistics may not be completely accurate, but can still represent the larger population as a whole.
According to the study, there are more than a million high school basketball players, and ankle sprains are the most prevalent injury in the sport. In order to test the effectiveness of lace-up braces, the experimenters assigned more than 1400 male and female basketball players to a control group and a braced group. Personally, I feel that this sample size is a large enough number to represent the majority. While developing my own original work, it will be important to keep in mind certain variables such as a control group and the sample size. In the study, the experimenters studied not only the number of injuries, but also the compliance of the brace, along with the severity of the injury.
The final results of the experiment confirmed that there was three times as many acute ankle injuries in the control group in comparison to the braced group. The question is, where can I take this? It is now obvious to me that there is a plethora of information in relation to the most common injuries in sports due to how prevalent they are. However, what I can do is take a different approach to one of these methods, or expand the amount of research done. For example, this study took everything at statistical value, but I could first hand ask players how they felt with and without the brace. Furthermore, through my experience in basketball I have learned that using braces too much can weaken the ankle and cause people to be dependent on the brace. I could potentially find a balance between using the brace too much and not using at all, and create a program that through calculated use, the ankle would actually get stronger. These are all ideas that can only be solidified once I get my mentor, but this article has helped me realize all of the aspects of the experiment, and potential human error as well.
Furthermore, the experiment concluded that the use of braces decreased the number of injuries, but did not affect the actual severity of the ankle sprains. Another approach I personally could take is developing a way to decrease how painful or serious an injury will be, because the difference between a level 3 and level 1 sprain in terms of treatment and cost is a big deal especially for families with financial problems. I have so many ideas and so many different visions, and I hope my mentor will help me clarify these and simplify these so I can truly grow to my full potential. At the end of the day, my final goal is and will continue to be to find a better way to prevent injuries. Lastly, I do not want my research to become one of hundreds of different articles in a Sports Medicine journal. I want my information to get to places where it can actually be used, not at the bottom of a long list of different experiments.
