Proprioception in school-aged typical developing children: ankle and hip proprioception and the correlation with balance performance

Abstract

Background: Both proprioception and balance are still developing during childhood and slowly stabilising in adolescence. Further, proprioception is one of the three important factors to maintain balance. This correlation is mainly investigated in the upper limb and in single-joints. Objectives: (1) the proprioception of both dominant and non-dominant body side in both ankle and hip joints and age; (2) balance performance and chronological age and (3) balance performance and proprioception of both dominant and non-dominant body side in both ankle and hip joints. Measurements: To measure the proprioception of the dominant and non-dominant body side of both the hip and ankle a passive joint position reproduction protocol was used. The exact joint angles were calculated with the use of the 3D analysis ‘Vicon’ was used. Balance was measured with the Kids-BESTest. Results: (1) A significant correlation was found for the ankle and hip joints both on the dominant and non-dominant body side (2) only a significant correlation between domain two of the Kids-BESTest and age (3) no significance was found except in domain three of the Kids-BESTest.