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Introduction: Running is the most common cardiovascular exercise in the military. However, there is a high incidence of running-related overuse injuries that reduces military readiness. Gait retraining is a common intervention to treat running-related injuries, but the high cost of equipment and lack of clinician expertise and availability reduces utilization. Gait retraining intervention in a telehealth format might improve feasibility. The purpose of this randomized clinical trial is to determine the effectiveness of a telehealth gait retraining intervention on pain, self-reported function, and biomechanical risk factors for injury in Service Members who present to a Military Health System physical therapy clinic with an overuse knee injury. Methods This is a parallel, two-arm, single-blind randomized clinical trial. The two independent variables are intervention (2 levels: telehealth gait retraining intervention with standard of care or only standard of care) and time (3 levels: baseline, 10-weeks or post-intervention, 14-weeks). The primary dependent variables are: 1. worst reported pain during and after running as measured on a visual analog scale; and 2. foot strike pattern during running. Secondary outcomes include worst non-knee pain during running, worst overall knee pain, self-reported function (University of Wisconsin Running Injury and Recovery Index, Single Assessment Numerical Evaluation, Anterior Knee Pain Scale), and running biomechanics (step rate, step length, ground contact time, peak knee adduction angle, peak hip adduction angle, average vertical loading rate, instantaneous vertical loading rate, knee stiffness, and peak rearfoot inversion moment). Discussion The effectiveness of a telehealth gait retraining intervention to reduce pain and modify foot strike pattern is not known. The results of this study may help determine the effectiveness and feasibility of a telehealth gait retraining intervention to reduce pain, change foot strike, improve function, and improve running gait biomechanics. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04269473. Registered 05 February 2020, http://clinicaltrials.gov/NCT04269473. |
