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Updated: Sep 20, 2025
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Published on: September 1, 2023
The development of a clinical screening tool to evaluate unilateral landing performance in a healthy population
Cedric De Blaiser1, Philip Roosen1, Stefan Vermeulen1
1Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ghent University, Campus UZ Gent, Ghent, Belgium.
Objectives:
To develop a clinical tool to evaluate unilateral landing quality in a healthy population. The reliability of the novel tool was evaluated, and the influence of gender and leg-dominance was investigated.
Design:
An experimental study for developing a test protocol, scoring criteria, and scoring method, based on observable landing errors, for the novel Unilateral Landing Error Scoring System (ULESS).
Setting:
Controlled lab environment.
Participants:
Healthy participants (25♂ and 25♀) performed the ULESS.
Main Outcome Measures:
The ULESS was scored with video analysis. Unilateral landing performance, measured with the ULESS, was compared to bilateral landing performance.
Results:
Sixteen items to assess trunk, pelvic, and lower limb movement patterns during a unilateral landing task resulted in a composite score on an interval scale. Moderate to excellent intra- and inter-tester reliability (ICC(2,1) = 0.77-0.90) was determined. The ULESS was able to identify moderate to poor unilateral landing quality in subjects with good to excellent bilateral landing quality. No main effect of gender (p = 0.19) or leg-dominance (p = 0.65) on ULESS scores was found.
Conclusion:
Moderate to excellent reliability can be expected when using the newly developed protocol and scoring method. The ULESS is feasible to perform with limited materials.
