Concurrent Validity of Depth Sensing Cameras for Non-Contact ACL Injury Screening During Side-Cut Maneuvers in Adolescent Athletes: A Preliminary Study.

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is one of the most common knee injuries among adolescent athletes. Majority of the ACL injuries occur due to pivoting, sudden deceleration and direction change without contact with any player. Preventive interventions can reduce risks of the ACL injury, thus developing a clinician friendly biomechanical assessment tool to identify athletes with such risk factors is crucial. In this study, we investigated the concurrent validity of a commercially-available depth sensor, Microsoft Kinect, as a cost-effective alternative to the gold standard three-dimensional motion analysis systems in non-contact ACL screening for adolescent athletes during side-cut maneuvers. Study participants performed 45° side-cut maneuvers while collecting data from both systems concurrently. The sagittal and frontal plane kinematics were analyzed during the full stance phase and the first 20% of the stance (early-deceleration). Absolute agreement (range ICC = 0.767, 0.989) and consistency (range ICC = 0.799, 0.992) were excellent for all measures except early-deceleration frontal plane hip angle, which displayed good absolute agreement (ICC = 0.643) and consistency (ICC = 0.625). Findings showed that the Kinect has the potential to be an effective clinical assessment tool for sagittal and frontal plane trunk, hip, and knee kinematics during the side-cut maneuvers.