فهرست مطالب s. bahiraei

The risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in childhood has increased in recent decades and could be a major threat to a child's sports career. An increased risk of ACL injury is associated with dynamic knee valgus (DKV). Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the effect of an ACL injury protocol on the LESS, proprioception, and DKV of child soccer players.

In this study, thirty male football players with DKV (mean ± SD: age 11.40 ± .72 years, weight 36.62 ± 4.68 kg, height 141.10 ± 3.98 m) were randomly assigned into two groups: control (n=15) and training (n=15). Single-leg landing, LESS, and knee joint proprioception tests were administered before and after the implementation of the training protocol. After identifying the variables, the training group performed the injury proprioception program for eight weeks, with three training sessions each lasting 20–25 minutes per week. The control group continued their normal warm-up routine. To examine the difference between the pre-test and post-test, repeated measures ANOVA was conducted using SPSS 26 software with a significance level of 0.05.

The results of the research showed that after eight weeks of the injury prevention program, there was a significant improvement in reducing the valgus angle of the knee (p=0.005, F=9.369, η²=0.251), reducing the LESS scores (p=0.002, F=12.374, η²=0.306) and improving proprioception (p=0.003, F=10.251, η²=0.268).

According to the results of the research, it can be concluded that Stop-X injury prevention program can lead to improvements in knee valgus pattern, LESS and proprioception in child soccer players. Using the results of this research is recommended to soccer coaches and training experts.

People with Down’s syndrome are characterized by impaired psychomotor development. One of the characteristics of motor development of these patients is imbalance. Therefore, performing exercise interventions is one way to reduce the imbalance in this group. Few studies have examined various exercise interventions to reduce or improve this disorder in people with Down syndrome. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to summarize the findings of exercise intervention studies on the balance of people with Down’s syndrome.

A systematic review of experimental and quasi-experimental studies was performed, which are designed to influence exercise interventions on improving balance in people with Down’s syndrome. The searches were conducted between the period of 2002 and 2020 in PubMed, Web of Science, Medline, Google scholar, Scopus databases and also in Persian databases, Scientific information database of Jahad Daneshgahi, MedLib (Comprehensive Bank of Medical Articles), IranMedex Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (IRANDOC), Magazine Publications Database (MAGIRAN) and with a combination of Down’s syndrome keywords, balance, exercise program. Studies were selected using predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data extraction was performed and an evaluation form was submitted to collect the main features of each article.

Out of 242 identified articles, by removing duplicates and reading the full text, 27 articles met the inclusion criteria for the final study. Findings showed that exercise interventions are more effective than control conditions to improve balance in people with Down’s syndrome. Also, studies showed that exercise programs and rehabilitation protocols have a positive effect on the balance of people with Down’s syndrome. Only super brain yoga exercises did not have a significant impact on static balance. Some studies also showed that the combined exercise program had a better effect on the balance of people with Down’s syndrome compared to other exercise programs.

The review of this study shows that in order to support health professionals in selecting, developing and implementing interventions to increase the physical health of people with Down Syndrome, more accurate training interventions and exercise reports are necessary. However, the present findings of this study should be considered, given the small number of studies and their limitations.