A two‐year prospective study of prophylactic knee braces in a national sample of college football players

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Abstract
Data were collected during the 1986 and 1987 seasons from a representative stratified national sample of college football teams to assess the efficacy of prophylactic knee braces in reducing the incidence and/or severity of knee injuries in football players. Over the two seasons there were a combined total of 6,229 players involved, of whom 28.0% wore prophylactic knee braces, with a total of 445,856 athlete‐exposures to the possibility of being injured in a game or a practice. The results indicate that the total incidence of knee injuries was slightly higher in braced players. Further analyses indicate that braces have no impact in reducing the incidence of medial collateral ligament (MCL) injuries, and there is no apparent difference in incidence among various brands of braces. There is no difference in the severity of total knee injuries or MCL injuries in braced and unbraced players when measured in days lost from participation or degree of MCL injury. When injuries in games were isolated to control for the “intensity”; of exposure to the possibility of being injured, the analyses provided the same results as seen for games and practices combined.

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