ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Injury Prevention and Control
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1617269
This article is part of the Research TopicLateral Ankle Sprain, Chronic Ankle Instability and Ankle Osteoarthritis: Unraveling Mechanisms and Exploring Management ApproachesView all 7 articles
Clinical Impairments associated with Ankle Disability in Patients with Acute Lateral Ankle Sprain
Provisionally accepted
- Sungkyunkwan University, Jongno-gu, Republic of Korea
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Background: Acute lateral ankle sprains (ALAS) are common musculoskeletal injuries among physically active individuals. While various impairments occur following ALAS, limited information is available on the factors contributing to ankle disability. This study aimed to investigate the association between the clinical impairments and ankle disability in patients with ALAS. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional design with 55 ALAS patients within two weeks of injury. Clinical impairments, including inflammatory symptoms (e.g. pain and swelling), restricted total ankle motion, joint laxity (e.g. anterior drawer test; ADT, inversion talar tilt test; ITT), and functional limitation were analyzed for their association with ankle disability assessed by the Foot and Ankle Ability Measure (FAAM) in Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and Sports (S) subscales. Results: Multiple regression analysis revealed significant models that explained approximately 70% of the variance in FAAM subscales. The results indicated that swelling (β= -.620 for FAAM-ADL, p<0.01, β= -.765 for FAAM-S, p<0.01) and pain (β= -.347 for FAAM-ADL, p<0.01, β= -.470 for FAAM-S, p<0.01) were the most significant contributors to ankle disability in both subscales. Joint laxity measured by the ITT (β= -.199, p<0.05) negatively affected sports-related disability while restricted total ankle motion (β= .307, p<0.05) had a positive effect. However, functional limitation was not significant in both subscales. Conclusions: These findings highlight the clinical impairments associated with ALAS, which contribute to ankle disability. Our results suggest that these impairments may be relevant considerations when designing early rehabilitation strategies (e.g., swelling reduction, pain control, and joint stability) for individuals with ALAS.Abbreviations: B=unstandardized beta; SE=standard error; Beta=standardized beta; ADT=anterior drawer test, ITT=inversion talar tilt test. *Indicates significant contributors (p < 0.05).
Keywords: patient-oriented outcomes, self-reported measures, Disablement, Ankle dysfunction, Acute injury
Received: 24 Apr 2025; Accepted: 17 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lee, Lee, Nam and Kim. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kyung-Min Kim, Sungkyunkwan University, Jongno-gu, Republic of Korea
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