Easy to use mobile app for ankle sprains prevention and rehabilitation

 By Evert Verhagen 

In recent years, knowledge about the prevention and rehabilitation of sport related injuries has grown exponentially. We are able to significantly reduce the burden of injuries in sports for most participants across many activities with current scientific evidence. However, we still struggle to implement effective measures on a wider scale, and fully unleash the potential of our preventive and rehabilitative knowledge.

one leg balance ankleThere is a recent push towards e-health in general and mobile media in particular to tackle this implementation gap. There are about one billion smartphones in use across the globe, signifying that access to mobile platforms is nowadays not a limiting factor. Also, with contemporary technology, mobile platforms can provide tailored information with ease of self- monitoring, portability and all-round availability.

Increasing uptake of evidence based prevention and rehabilitation of ankle sprains

We have a broad scientific sense of effective measures for ankle sprain injuries, but fail to actually transfer this knowledge to practice. Ankle sprains are amongst the most prevalent injuries across a wide variety of sports, carry high societal costs, and may result in long-term complaints. Active implementation approaches have led to wide-scale uptake of neuromuscular training for the prevention and rehabilitation of ankle sprains. However, the individual athlete’s compliance to such programs remains suboptimal.

ankle exercisesThis, in part, led researchers from the Department of Public and Occupational of the VU University Medical Center in the Netherlands to develop an interactive and evidence-based ‘Ankle’ application, which contains a neuromuscular training program [3-5]. The App guides the athlete through an eight-week training program using animations, feedback, and so-called push messaging.

The British Journal of Sports Medicine supports this app and the knowledge to practice gap it seeks to bridge. Listen to more about this app, on the BJSM podcast Evert Verhagen makes social media and apps intelligible.

The App is now available in  iTunes (HERE) and Google play store (HERE)

ankle app week chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Evert Verhagen (@EvertVerhagen) is a human movement scientist and epidemiologist.

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