If you sprain your ankle repeatedly, be careful of chronic ankle instability!

The ankle joint is one of the important joints of the human body. In daily exercise, we mainly carry out activities such as dorsiflexion and plantar flexion of the ankle joint. There are many reasons for sprains, and there is still no unified explanation for the pathogenic mechanism. Some patients develop chronic diseases due to repeated sprains. Such patients usually have irreversible pathological changes in the ankle joint. These include the interaction of soft tissue injuries, sensory disorders, motor behavior disorders, environment and personal psychology.

Ankle sprain is one of the most common musculoskeletal injuries, accounting for about 10% to 20% of all sports injuries. According to statistics, 85% of patients with ankle sprains are caused by excessive inversion, which is generally caused by stretching and tearing of the lateral ligament complex during inversion at a high speed. In daily life, repeated jumping and frequent changes of direction, or running on uneven roads, are very likely to cause ankle sprains, such as basketball, football, volleyball, cross-country running, etc. This is due to the fact that the talus is wide in front and narrow in the back, so when people are active, they naturally straighten their feet when they land from a high place, and they first land on their toes or forefoot. This situation is mainly to give full play to the elasticity of the arch of the foot, and use the elasticity of the arch of the foot to reduce the body's gravity, thereby reducing the body's shock force. Generally, when the ankle joint is in this situation, the narrow part of the talus will enter the joint socket from the lower end of the tibia and fibula, so when viewed from the side, the head and socket of the ankle joint are relatively loose, and at the same time do not have strong stability. At this time, if there is lateral activity, the risk is very high.

Chronic ankle instability (CAI) is a common functional disorder after ankle sprain, which is mainly divided into mechanical ankle instability and functional ankle instability. Chronic ankle instability is mainly manifested by damage to the tissues around the joint, proprioceptor dysfunction, changes in muscle activation patterns, and decreased posture control ability. There are many clinical intervention methods for chronic ankle instability, mainly including muscle strength training, joint range of motion training, balance and proprioception training

If the ankle joint is habitually sprained, it is likely to cause the medial and lateral ligaments to loosen, causing a lot of inconvenience and pain in daily life, increasing the psychological burden and greatly reducing the quality of life. The reasons for this are as follows: doing high-intensity, high-load exercise without warm-up activities; poor coordination leading to sports injuries during running and jumping; inappropriate sports venues and equipment. The editor always believes that prevention is far better than cure, so the following points are summarized for your reference.

1. Do the appropriate warm-up exercises before exercise. For racket sports, you also need to activate the upper limbs and waist and abdomen;

2. Choose reasonable and comfortable sports equipment and venues for activities;

3. People who do not exercise regularly should avoid high-intensity activities and should increase their activity gradually;

4. People with visual impairments or motor impairments should choose to walk on flat surfaces and stay close to handrails when going up and down stairs;

5. People who are prone to ankle sprains are advised to wear high socks and high-top shoes, and choose soles with moderate hardness.

If you have experienced an ankle sprain and have not fully recovered, it is recommended that you go to a medical institution for evaluation and treatment.

The popular science content of this platform has been funded by the China Association for Science and Technology's Science Popularization Department's 2022 National Science Literacy Action Project "National Society Science Popularization Capacity Improvement Project-Rehabilitation Science Popularization Service Capacity Improvement Action Plan"