Introduction: Lateral ankle sprain is one of the most common injuries that occur during sport or other physical activity. More than half of individuals do not seek for suitable help in health institutions. The most important risk factor for recurrent sprain is the history of former ankle sprain and even the first one can grow into chronic ankle instability. This condition causes feeling of instability, pain, swelling, reduced range of motion, weakness, and subjective experience of reduced ankle function. In the long term this can lead to development of osteoarthrosis, joint cartilage injury and surgical treatment. Chronic ankle instability consists of physiological, mechanical, sensory, motor, personal and environmental factors and that’s why addressing just one factor isn’t the most appropriate way of treatment. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to present the effect of different exercise programs on dynamic balance and subjective assessment of functionality in individuals with chronic ankle instability. Methods: The literature was searched in PubMed database using a selected combination of keywords. Articles in English, full text, not older than 5 years and those which examined individuals with chronic ankle instability were included in the analysis. Results: Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, five studies were included in the literature review. All investigated the effect of selected exercise program in individuals with chronic ankle instability. Strength training, balance training or combination of both were used in the programs. Two studies confirmed improvement after the combination program was performed. No improvements were confirmed after performing isolated strength or balance program. Discussion and conclusion: We found that the combination of strength and balance training is the only suitable approach for treating chronic ankle instability. To examinate the effect of isolated programs for strength or balance further research is needed with different parameters of exercises. The results cannot be generalized on whole population because studies only included young individuals.
|