Ankle Brace V/s below Knee Slab in Lateral Ankle Sprains (Grade I and II)

Ankle ligament injuries are the most common injuries in sports and physical activity. In spite of high frequency of such injuries and the potential for significant morbidity, no treatment is considered to be the gold standard for the management of such sprains. Traditionally, ankle sprains were treated with strict immobilization in below knee posterior slab but nowadays, functional treatment with immediate weight bearing has been advocated. We assessed the use of ankle stirrup brace versus below knee posterior slab for treatment of lateral ankle sprains employing the VAS scoring for pain assessment and Karlsson scoring for functional assessment. This is a Comparative intervention Study done at National Trauma Centre.44 Patients eligible for inclusion were assigned to either the ankle stirrup brace group or the posterior slab group after applying randomization. Characteristics such as age, dominant ankle, and gender were assessed at baseline. Pain assessment was done using the visual analog scale (VAS) at baseline and at 3rd week and functional assessment was done using Karlsson score (KS) was the 3rd week. SPSS version 16 was used for analysis, and p < 0.05 was taken to indicate significance. The mean ages were 31.41±8.09 in the slab group and 31.45±7.15 in the ankle stirrup brace group. There was a slight male predominance. Right ankles were mainly involved in both groups. There was no significant difference in pain reduction at 3 weeks between two groups (<0.064) however the mean differences in swelling(p<0.02) and Karlssons Score (p<0.031) between the two groups were statistically significant at the end of the study. The results of our study indicate that treatment with ankle stirrup brace provides better functional support and reduction of swelling than a below-knee posterior slab in management of lateral ankle sprains (grade I and II).