| dc.description.abstract | Objective. To examine knee proprioception measured by joint motion sense (JMS), active joint position sense (AJPS) and passive joint position sense (PJPS) and to assess their associations in a healthy elderly population.
Methods. The measuring device consisted of a custom made chair with a computer-controlled motor and two attached free-moving arms. For JMS, the angular displacement between the starting position and the position at the instant of movement detection was recorded. Both AJPS (30°) and PJPS (30°, 45°, 60°) comprised of a reproduction task performed with the same device; angular displacement between starting position and reproduction angle was recorded. The correlation between JMS, AJPS and PJPS within the same knee and between left and right knee were calculated with the Pearson correlation coefficient.
Results. The study group consisted of 46 healthy participants (26 female, 20 males), without knee complaints in the age of 50 to 72. The correlation within the left and right knee between JMS and AJP was r= -0.07 and r= -0.03 respectively, and between JMS and PJPS (left: r= -0.11 to -0.04; right: r= 0.08 to 0.10). The correlation between AJPS and PJPS was r= 0.28-0.46 (left) and r= -0.03-0.31 (right).
Conclusion. In a population of healthy elderly participants, there was no association of JMS with JPS (either AJPS or PJPS) and the association of AJPS with PJPS was weak. These results suggest that JMS and JPS are representing different aspects of joint proprioception. The weak association between PJPS and AJPS suggests that they are no interchangeable aspects of JPS. | |
