A new perspective on risk assessment

Abstract

Pre-season screening is routinely promoted as part of either an injury risk management strategy or as a performance enhancement strategy. Many of these processes focus on testing joint range, muscle strength (both power and endurance) and testing muscle extensibility. Although some functional tests based on work specific tasks and sport specific skills are applied they are specific to one task or a sport specific skill. It seems that the clinical outcomes of asymptomatic function, normal range of joint motion (isolated testing) and normal muscle strength (isolated testing) are not adequate rehabilitation end points to prevent recurrence. This Masterclass explores assessment and retraining from a new perspective in an attempt to address multiple muscle interactions acting on multiple joints in functionally orientated tasks. The assessment is based on the specific assessment of the site and direction of uncontrolled movement, under low and high threshold loading at different joint systems within functionally orientated tasks. From this assessment, a specific retraining programme can be developed and implemented.