Published Paper Details:

Background and purpose: With increasing competition and growing stress on players to perform has led to increased injuries. Ankle sprain is one of most common sports injury which requires an effective rehabilitation protocol. The primary purpose of this study is to determine which training medium is better (water versus land) when training balance for functional ankle instability. Methods: Thirty subjects with unilateral functional ankle instability were randomly assigned to two groups-water training and land training group. They completed the balance retraining protocol of 4 weeks (thrice a week) in the respective mediums (water and land). The balance improvement was assessed on Star Excursion Balance Test (for dynamic balance) and One Leg Stance Test (for static balance) on 3 intervals-days 0, week 2 and week 4. Results: The results show that both the group improved significantly from day 0 to week 4. The within subject factor was significant for static as well as dynamic balance. The between subject factor was non significant for static as well as dynamic balance. The time into group interaction was significant for 4 directions-anterior, posteromedial, posterior and anterolateral and nonsignificant for other 4 directions-anteromedial, medial, lateral and posterolateral. The time into group interaction was non-significant for one leg stance test. Conclusion: Both the mediums were equally effective when training static as well as dynamic balance. The pattern of improvement for dynamic balance differed across time span of 4 weeks for dynamic balance with water group performing marginally better than the land group. The pattern of improvement across time span of 4 weeks was similar for static balance thus showing water is a clinically better medium for training dynamic balance.