• Dietmar Dammerer, Johannes M Giesinger, Rainer Biedermann, Christian Haid, Martin Krismer, and Michael Liebensteiner.
• Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria. Electronic address: dietmar.dammerer@uki.at.
• Arthroscopy. 2015 Mar 1; 31 (3): 404-9.

PurposeTo assess driving ability (brake response time [BRT]) with commonly used knee braces.MethodsSixty-four healthy participants (32 women and 32 men) participated in our study. BRT was assessed using a custom-made driving simulator. We assessed BRT for 5 different commonly used knee braces (right leg) used in 9 different settings: without a knee brace (control group); with a typical postoperative knee brace with adjustable range of motion (ROM) and the settings of 0° to 30°, 0° to 60°, 0° to 90°, and 20° to 90° (extension and flexion); and with an unloading knee brace for moderate to severe unicompartmental osteoarthritis, an orthosis for ligament instabilities, a knee brace for patellofemoral disorders, and an elastic knee bandage.ResultsThe 64 participants (mean age, 33.5 years) showed significantly impaired BRT with the typical postoperative brace set at an ROM of 0° to 30° (673 milliseconds, P < .001), ROM of 0° to 60° (629 milliseconds, P < .001), ROM of 0° to 90° (607 milliseconds, P = .001), and ROM of 20° to 90° (602 milliseconds, P = .005) compared with the control group. However, no such impaired BRT was found for any other investigated knee brace.ConclusionsRight-sided ROM-restricting knee braces involve significant impairment of BRT in healthy participants. No such prolonged BRT was found for a patellofemoral realignment brace, a ligament brace, a valgus/osteoarthritis brace, or an elastic knee bandage. However, our findings should be viewed in light of the limitations of the study, which are (1) the lack of a defined decrease in BRT that could lead to an accident and (2) uncertainty of whether the statistical differences are also clinically important.Level Of EvidenceLevel II, lesser-quality randomized controlled trial.Copyright © 2015 Arthroscopy Association of North America. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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