Does movement quality 6 months post ACL reconstructive surgery indicate the perceived functional abilities 2 years later?

Abstract: Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are common, especially among athletes. The injury often leaves the patient with consequences, such as affected postural orientation, impaired functional performance, and muscle weakness, even after rehabilitation is completed. In addition to performance-based tests, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMS) may be used to measure the patient’s perceived functional abilities. A correlation worth evaluating is the potential association between postural orientation errors (POE) and future PROMs. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the POEs seen in functional tests 6 months after reconstructive ACL-surgery (ACLR), and the perceived functional abilities 2 years later. Study Design: The study is a longitudinal, observational study. Methods: The study included 21 participants, 7 women and 14 men, who had undergone an ACL-reconstruction. POEs were visually evaluated while the participants performed 5 functional tasks approximately 6 months post-surgery. The tasks were scored segmentspecifically from 0-3, where 0 indicates no postural orientation errors and 3 higher level of POE. The tasks were divided into subscale Activity of Daily Living (ADL) and subscale Sport, and POE was calculated for each subscale, as well as total score for all tasks. PROMquestionnaires were sent out 2 years later. Spearman’s rank coefficient (rs) was used to determine any association. Result: The strongest association was observed between the POE subscale Sport and the PROM ACL-Quality of Life subscale Sport (rs= -0.576, p=0.006). In addition, significant moderate associations were observed in 6 of the other correlations between the different POE scores and PROMs (rs=-0.435 to -0.490, p<0.05). Conclusion: Assessment of POEs after ACLR may be used to indicate future perceived functional abilities, as this study shows associations between POEs after 6 months and future PROMs (2 years). This suggests that assessment of POEs might be useful during later stages of rehabilitation to get an indication of future perceived functional abilities.