Intrinsic foot muscles size and quality changes after impairment-based rehabilitation in patients with chronic ankle...

To determine IFMs size and quality using US imaging following rehabilitation in patients with CAI.

Prospective cohort study.

University Laboratory.

26 patients with CAI (age:21.9 ± 3.5 yrs; 18F, 8M) completed 8 clinician-supervised rehabilitation sessions over a 4-week period.

US imaging assessed IFM cross-sectional area (CSA) in seated and standing positions for both trained and untrained legs before and after the intervention. Muscle quality was evaluated using grey scale analysis for echogenicity.

Significant (P < 0.01) increases in normalized CSA were observed for AbH and FDB in both seated and standing positions. Significant improvements (P < 0.05) were also seen in the untrained leg during standing. No significant changes were found in seated positions or in echogenicity for AbH (P = 0.26) and FDB (P = 0.052) for the trained leg.

IFM CSA increased post-rehabilitation, with some cross-over effects in the untrained leg. There was a certain cross-over effect observed. The muscle quality measures didn't change for the IFMs before and after rehabilitation. The IFMs strengthening should be included in CAI rehabilitation programs. There is a definite increase in size after rehabilitation. However, for quality changes there may be a need of longer rehabilitation programs.