Abstract
Purpose of study
To study the effect of different shoes and orthotics have on patellar tendon tensile forces.
Patellar tendinopathy is an overuse injury that affects tennis players and in high impact sports like basketball, volleyball and running has an incidence of 20%. The tensile forces in the patellar tendon can be reliably measured with an intratendinously placed fibre optic tube and wireless transmission device allows for dynamic testing. The biggest strain differentials have been confirmed in jumps from 30cm height. Tennis is played on 3 major different court surfaces and there is a variety of commercially designed tennis shoes on the market.
Materials and methods
6 male tennis players, ages 18–49 were enrolled for this study. A fibre optic cannula was placed in the middle of the proximal pole of patella tendon from lateral to medial direction in the dominant knee. The patellar tendon tensile forces deform the fibre optic cannula in turn modulating the light signal passing through the optic cannula. The drag in the fibre optic sensor signal was used to measure the tensile forces in the patellar tendon. MLTS 700 goniometer were utilized to measure and record the amount of flexion with each jump to standardize results for different shoes and orthotics.
Results
The results of patellar tendon tensile forces measurements for different players, different shoes and orthotics showed no trend or statistical difference for any particular shoe or orthotic.
Conclusions
Fibre optic measurements of the effect of different shoes on patellar tendon tensile forces did not show a distinct advantage for any shoe above another.
1 DISCLOSURE
