None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The perception of health of the body and the estimation of the capacity of the body is informed by visual information from the body. It has been shown that creating the visual illusion of a muscled and fit looking back increased the participants feeling of strength and confidence in the back. This seems to also affect the pain experience. Pain during a lifting task was dramatically less when viewing an embodied image of a strong back than when viewing a normal image of the back .We have demonstrated a similar phenomenon with exercise induced muscle pain. Participants rated their pain as greater when viewing a magnified image of the thigh during contraction of the injured thigh muscles compared with viewing the thigh normally. We interpreted this as the magnified image suggesting a more swollen and therefore more injured muscle. We wish to see if other visual information than suggests a more sensitised structure similarly influences pain intensity without the confounding effect of visual distortion, particularly in clinical pain. Other researchers have shown that changing the colour of the body part changed sensitivity in an experimental pain model. Making the body part appear red, suggesting inflamed tissue, increased sensitivity whereas making the part appear blue had no effect on sensitivity. We hope to explore this phenomenon to see if, and to what extent, it exists in AT, and to simultaneously investigate the effect of this type of visual information on tendon function – something which no study of visually manipulation has done before. The aim of this study is therefore to examine the effect of augmented visualisation on pain and function in people with AT. To achieve this, we will assess pain and leg stiffness with hopping in people with AT while they view a video image of their leg under normal conditions and compare these results with an augmented vision condition in which the tendon is painted red. To control for the confounding effect of a change in tendon colour we will have an additional control condition in which the tendon is painted blue.
Interventions
This study is a randomised cross over experiment in which participants will complete a standardised sub maximal hopping task of 10 hops on a portable force plate under two different conditions in random order. All participants will be randomly allocated to both interventions and the control condition. Participants will need to have Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment self-administered Achilles (VISA-A) score below 80 and a painful hop test. Participants will be asked to self pace a series o
This study is a randomised cross over experiment in which participants will complete a standardised sub maximal hopping task of 10 hops on a portable force plate under two different conditions in random order. All participants will be randomly allocated to both interventions and the control condition. Participants will need to have Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment self-administered Achilles (VISA-A) score below 80 and a painful hop test. Participants will be asked to self pace a series of 10 hops at their own natural hopping frequency. The intervention will be administered by a Physiotherapist. One intervention condition involves hopping while visualizing their calf muscle and Achilles tendon with red body paint applied to the tendon. The other intervention condition involves hopping while visualizing their calf muscle and Achilles tendon with blue body paint applied to the tendon. A live video will be projected to a screen in front of the participant during the hopping trial. Participants will view their calf and Achilles in real time while they hop. An iPad will record the hopping trials and mirror the video to a screen placed in front of the participant. The washout period will be 15 minutes.
Sponsors
The University of Notre Dame Australia
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Crossover
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to 60 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Participants will be included if they are a recreational runner with a history of unilateral mid portion Achilles tendinopathy for over 1 month. Participants must have sufficient English language skills to complete the questionnaires and be able to give consent to the test procedure. They must have normal to corrected vision so that they can undertake the visual feedback condition. In addition participants VISA-A score must be below 80
Exclusion criteria
Insertional AT will be excluded from this study. People with a non-painful hop test will also be excluded from the study. Participants with a history of foot or ankle injury or surgery within the previous six months or any coexisting lower quadrant musculoskeletal problem will be excluded. Participants with any report of clinically significant low back pain within the previous 3-months will also be excluded. Participants with active systemic disease such as diabetes or an inflammatory disorder and those taking regular analgesic medications will be excluded.
Outcome results
None listed