Prophylactic knee bracing in college football

Abstract

American football can be harmful to knees. In an at tempt to reduce the number and severity of knee injuries, the intercollegiate football team at the Univer sity of Arizona (Pacific Ten Conference) has been using protective braces since 1981. Objective evaluation of the effectiveness of this program is the purpose of this study. All linemen, offensive and defensive, as well as linebackers and tight ends were considered to be the players at greatest risk and were required to use the braces. The brace used was the Anderson Knee Sta bler. Each player at each practice session or game was counted as one exposure. During the 4 years of brace use, there were 28,191 exposures, while the control group numbered 29,293 exposures. The data were analyzed from the perspectives of days lost from prac tice or games, player's position, the type and severity of injury, and the rate of injury per 100 players per season. Players at risk showed no trend to change in injury rate. Of the players at risk, the type and severity of injury in nonbraced and in braced groups were similar. A significant finding in players at risk was a two fold increase in knee ligament injury rate per 100 players when compared to rates for an entire team. The number of season-ending injuries remained unchanged. Prac tice time missed for third-degree medial ligament, and for medial meniscus injuries, was significantly lower in the braced group, but this was due to improved treat ment techniques initiated in 1981. Seven NCAA rule changes, directed at reducing knee injuries, have been introduced since 1981. Neither the rule changes nor the braces nor the combination thereof have had any apparent effect on the trend to knee injury in this study. We conclude that, in this study, knee injury prevention in a college football team was not improved by prophy lactic knee bracing.