Popliteus function in ACL-deficient patients

Abstract

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries commonly result in anterolateral instability, resulting in a "pivot shift" phenomenon. Given that popliteus muscle stimulation results in a pivot shift, others have postulated that the popliteus muscle has a role in the pivot shift phenomenon. We hypothesized that patients with instability from ACL injuries may have excessive popliteus muscle activity. Therefore, we studied the EMG activity (using fine wire electrodes) of the popliteus muscle in sixteen normal subjects and ten ACL-deficient subjects. We recorded the EMG in six activities (level walking and jogging, ascending walking and jogging, and descending walking and jogging). Person's Product Moment Correlations were above 0.7, except in the case of ascending the treadmill (r = 0.427) and ascending jogging (r = 0.645), suggesting that the timing of the signals was similar for injured and uninjured limbs. Variance ratios for the injured and uninjured limbs were statistically similar, suggesting similar variability of patterns. Thus, we observed only minor popliteus EMG signal differences in this group of patients. We conclude that the popliteus muscle does not contribute to instability in the studied activities.