Submitted by Rick Peters on Sat, 07/14/2012 - 12:51
Ultra Athlete® was an exhibitor at the 2012 annual National Athletic Trainers Meeting in St. Louis. This meeting brought sports medicine professionals together from around the world. Many athletic trainers stopped by our exhibit to tell us their experience using the Ultra Zoom® and Ultra High-5® on their athletes and patients. Brian Curless, ATC at the Moore Orthopedic Sports Medicine clinic says: “Our patients love the Ultra Zoom, especially the active ones. They find it easy to apply, comfortable and provides great support.” Jim Riser, ATC at Mewberry College states: I’ve been using the Ultra Zoom® with volleyball and soccer players. They really like the low profile of the brace and that it doesn’t restrict their performance. They also love the fact there is no laces to lace-up.
Ankle brace research was also presented at the NATA annual meeting. John Kovaleski PhD, ATC and Professor, Exercise Science Department of Health & Physical Education at the University of South Alabama presented a paper titled, Influence Of Ankle Flexion Angle On Brace Support Of The Ankle-Complex. Results: The ROM ratio showed that the rigid and soft-shell braces provided the greatest amount of dorsiflexion (88 to 90%) and plantar flexion (90 to 95%) (P > .05). Whereas wearing the lace-up brace resulted in significantly reduced DF (80.1%) and PF (79.9%) ROM ratios (P < .004). When comparing the braces themselves, the soft-shell and rigid braces produced significantly decreased I-E ROM versus the lace-up brace at each flexion angle [10° DF: soft-shell (34.7 ± 6.6°) and rigid (31.9 ± 7.6°) brace I-E ROMs were significantly lower than the lace-up brace (44.4 ± 10.9°, P < .001)]; [Neutral: soft-shell (37.5 ± 7.8°) and rigid (36.5 ± 8.3°) brace I-E ROMs were significantly lower than the lace-up brace (48.9 ± 12.2°, P < .001)]; and [15° PF: soft-shell (40.2 ± 8.9°) and rigid (40.3 ± 10.4°) brace I-E ROMs were significantly lower than the lace-up brace (47.1 ± 12.7°, P < .001)]. Conclusions: The soft-shell and rigid braces provided superior inversion-eversion rotation support across each ankle flexion angle with minimal interference in active plantarflexion/dorsiflexion ROM.
