Normative values of spinal and peripheral proprioception in position sense among healthy adolescents and young adults

Establishing normative values and understanding how proprioception varies among body parts is crucial. However, the variability across individuals, especially adolescents, makes it difficult to establish norms. This prevents further investigation into classifying patients with abnormal proprioception. Therefore, the primary objective was to address the knowledge gap using three-dimensional motion analysis to capture position sense in adolescents and young adults. The secondary objective was to evaluate the relationship between position sense and age, as well as the interrelationships of position senses across various anatomical sites. Healthy participants aged 10 to 25 years were included. Six position sense tests were implemented on the trunk, neck, elbow, and knee. Data were captured using a three-dimensional motion capture system. The proprioceptive measure was the absolute repositioning error (the difference between the destinated starting position and the corresponding self-reproduced ending position) of each test. A total of 103 participants were recruited. We found that only spinal proprioception was associated with chronological age, whereas peripheral proprioception was not. Subgroup analyses revealed that subjects aged 10 to 13 years had the poorest proprioceptive performance. The normative values of proprioception of various body parts were, trunk flexion-extension test = 25° ± 12°; trunk lateral-flexion test = 23° ± 10°; trunk axial-rotation test = 26° ± 11°; left neck rotation test = 2° ± 1°; right neck rotation test = 3° ± 1°; left elbow flexion test = 5° ± 3°; right elbow flexion test = 5° ± 2°; left knee extension test = 3° ± 2°; right knee extension test = 3° ± 1°. The normative values of proprioception in position sense provided in this study may help identify individuals with proprioceptive deficits and inform targeted interventions to improve proprioception.