2015 ISAKOS Biennial Congress ePoster #1239

Higher Energy Cost of Walking For Anterior Cruciate Ligament Deficient Patients Comparing With Healthy Matched Pairs Controls

Efthymios Iliopoulos, MD, PhD, MBA, Thessaloniki GREECE
Michail I. Iosifidis, MD, PhD, Thessaloniki GREECE
Andreas Zafeiridis, PhD, Serres GREECE
Michael Potoupnis, MD, PhD, Thessaloniki GREECE
Pericles P. Papadopoulos, Prof., Thessaloniki GREECE
Nikolaos Geladas, PhD, Athens GREECE
Ioannis Vrabas, PhD, Serres GREECE
Anastasios Miltiades Kyriakidis, Senior Consultant, Thessaloniki GREECE
Nikiforos Galanis, MD, PhD, Thessaloniki GREECE
Ioannis Kyrkos, MD, PhD, Thessaloniki GREECE
2nd Orthopaedic Department, Papageorgiou G. H., Thessaloniki, Department of Physical Education and Sports Science, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Serres, 3rd Orthopaedic Department, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, , Thessaloniki, GREECE

FDA Status Not Applicable

Summary: ACL deficient patients have pathological gait with higher energy cost than the healthy pattern during walking

Abstract:

Background

There is a lot of discussion in the literature about alternations that occur to ACL-deficient patients, and many altered gait patterns have been described. Although that pathological gait have higher energy cost than the healthy pattern, in the literature that excess has been confirmed only during jogging and not at walking.

Purpose

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the energy cost of walking alternations of ACL deficient patients in different tasks.
Materials & Methods:
Twenty male patients (aged 25±5.41 years) with isolated unilateral ACL injury were breath-by-breath tested with the K4 b2 spirometer at three tasks. The tasks were to walk at 5km/h speed on a treadmill, at 0%, 10% up and 10% down gradient. The sequence of each task was randomized to each patient. Oxygen consumption (VO2 ml/kg/min), ventilation (VE l/min), respiratory exchange ratio (RER VCO2/VO2), heart rate (HR), VO2/HR (ml/bpm), VE/VO2 was calculated for each task of the subjects. A control group of 10 healthy male individuals was also been measured at the same tasks. Independent samples t-test was used for statistical analysis, with statistical significance considered to be p<0.05.

Results

Oxygen consumption of the patients with ACL deficiency was statistically significant higher than controls, during 0% (p=0.004), 10% up (p<0.001) and 10% down (p=0.003) gradient. The rest of the measurements were not statistically significant different.

Conclusion

ACL deficiency lead to altered gait patterns, which are more energy demanding than the healthy gait pattern. These alternations affect the walking economy at level walking and also at up and down gradient walking.