Performance in different proprioceptive tests does not correlate in ankles with recurrent sprain

Objective: To determine the relation between 2 proprioceptive tests, movement detection and movement discrimination, at the ankle. Design: A cross-sectional descriptive study. Setting: Research laboratory. Participants: Eighteen subjects with recurrent ankle inversion sprain. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: Threshold to detection of movement was tested for inversion and eversion movements at 3 velocities (0.1 degrees, 0.5 degrees, 2.5 degrees/s). Movement discrimination was tested for plantarflexion and inversion movements. The tests were performed in random order, and the velocity and movements were randomized within each test paradigm. Correlations (Pearson r) were calculated between movement detection and movement discrimination. Results: Correlation within each proprioceptive paradigm was poor to moderate: for movement detection, correlations among movement directions at each velocity ranged from r equal to .53 to r equal to .54; for movement discrimination correlation was r equal to .49. There was poor correlation between the scores for the 2 tasks in 10 of the 12 comparisons (r range, -.02 to -.36). Conclusions: These findings show that performance in different proprioceptive tests is not well correlated and, therefore, that general proprioceptive status cannot be inferred from assessment of a single proprioceptive test.