The development of a clinical screening tool to evaluate unilateral landing performance in a healthy population

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Biomechanics; Injury-prevention; Landing; Reliability; Screening.