The literature suggests that body kinematics and musculoskeletal differences are major factors contributing to the high disparity in non-contact Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury rate between genders. The literature also indicates that the incidence of non-contact ACL injury predominates during single-leg landing sports such as basketball, soccer, and handball. Despite this, there are few studies investigating kinematics or musculoskeletal differences between genders during single-leg landing from increasing vertical heights and horizontal distances. The objectives of this study are threefold: first, conduct a gap study identifying the barriers to predicting mechanisms and risk factors for non-contact ACL injury. Second, propose a new approach that can address some of the challenges encountered in some existing non-contact ACL injury study approaches. Finally, whilst determining whether or not gender differences explain the higher rate of ACL injuries among females, identify and correlate the biomechanical and musculoskeletal variables significantly impacted by gender, vertical landing height, and/or horizontal landing distance and their interactions to various ACL injury risk predictor variables during single-leg landing. Experiments using male and female subjects, inverse dynamics analysis using Visual3D, and musculoskeletal modeling simulation using AnyBody Modeling System were approaches used to explore these objectives. Salient findings from this dissertation includes but are not limited to, non-contact ACL injury that occurs during single-leg landing is mutifaceted entailing many factors that cannot be captured in any one existing ACL injury study approach. Non-contact ACL injury during single-leg landing may not be gender specific. Both vertical height and horizontal distance of landing increase the risk of non-contact ACL injury during single-leg landing. Body kinematics during single-leg landing may not be the sole determinant in attenuating ground reaction forces and consequently risk of ACL injury. The hamstring and gastrocnemius muscles were determined to strain shield the ACL while the quadriceps were found to have no significant effect on risk of ACL injury during single-leg landing. Within the findings and limitations of this study the knowledge garnered from this research may aid in tailoring future studies so as to enable more robust non-contact ACL injury prevention protocols.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/32038 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Nicholas, Ali |
| Contributors | Gordon Robertson, Ghomalreza Rouhi |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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