Mal-Alignment as a Risk Factor for Lower Extremity Overuse Injuries: A Case Control Study

Engaging in sports activities has various health benefits, but also carries the risk of injury. Overuse injuries in young adults is one of them which is challenge to the treating clinician. In the present study, we studied the association of mal-alignment as a risk factor for overuse injuries of lower extremity in young adults. In this prospective case-control study, we enrolled all the adult patients engaged in unorganised sports activity presented with various lower extremity overuses injuries as cases and the without any overuse injury as controls. After making a clinical impression, all patients were subjected to relevant X-rays to diagnose the malalignment, if present or not. A total of 471 cases and 857 controls with overuse injuries were included. The mean age at diagnosis of overuse injuries was 25.5(16-30) yrs in cases and 24.3 (18-30) yrs in controls. The recreational running was the commonest unorganized activity in both males (38.2%) and females (62.5%). Correlation of the mal-alignment with overuse injuries found to be statistically significant (p=0.003). In conclusion overuse injuries in young adults are significantly associated with mal-alignments. Better understanding of these mal-alignments is better for the management of these injuries.