• Am J Sports Med · Mar 1991

    Comparative Study

    Comparative reflex response times of vastus medialis obliquus and vastus lateralis in normal subjects and subjects with extensor mechanism dysfunction. An electromyographic study.

    • M L Voight and D L Wieder.
    • Division of Physical Therapy, University of Miami School of Medicine, Florida.
    • Am J Sports Med. 1991 Mar 1; 19 (2): 131-7.

    AbstractReflex response times of the vastus medialis obliquus and vastus lateralis were evaluated in 41 normal subjects and 16 patients with extensor mechanism dysfunction. The reflex response times for both muscles to a patellar tendon tap were evaluated by electromyography. The latencies of the muscles were statistically analyzed in both groups. In normal subjects, one-tailed paired-sample t-tests determined that the vastus medialis obliquus fired significantly faster than the vastus lateralis (P less than 0.001). In the patients, the vastus lateralis fired significantly faster than the vastus medialis obliquus (P less than 0.001). A chi square goodness of fit test demonstrated a dependency between the order of muscle firing and the type of subject (P less than 0.001). Two-tailed independent-sample t-tests revealed that the patients demonstrated a significantly faster vastus lateralis response time than the normal subjects (P less than 0.001), whereas the vastus medialis obliquus times were not significantly different. This increase in vastus lateralis reflex response time may indicate a motor control problem in the patient with extensor mechanism dysfunction. Results indicate that there is a reversal of the normal muscular firing order between the two muscles in these patients. Patients with extensor mechanism dysfunction may be demonstrating a neurophysiologic motor control imbalance that may account for or contribute to their anterior knee pain.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.