The prospective study “Reaction Time and Brake Pedal Depression Following Arthroscopic Hip Surgery: A prospective Case-Control Study” by Balazs addresses an important research question pertaining to the post- operative concerns of many patients undergoing hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement. As acknowledged by the authors, the incapacity to drive places a significant number of limitations on patients’ lives. This study attempts to elucidate the ability of pa- tients to safely brake in the face of simulated hazards on the road preoperatively and postoperatively, as well as to compare these with age- and sex-matched controls. A key principle on which this study places importance is that individuals can be deemed safe to drive if they are able to operate the brake and accelerator pedals appropriately and with acceptable reaction times. Thus the authors have isolated the practical steps in doing so (release time, movement time [MT], and brake pedal depression) and characterized them individually. In addition, perhaps to determine whether left hip surgery modulates the ability of the contralateral leg to use the pedals in question (exclusively in patients who operate the brake with the right foot), the study included patients scheduled to undergo left hip arthroscopy, with the running hypothesis that in these patients, there would be no change in brake reaction time preoperatively or postoperatively. However, the authors do not attest that the research question specifically focuses on automatic vehicles and not manual vehicles requiring clutch control by the left foot ...
Language: en
", language="en", issn="0749-8063", doi="10.1016/j.arthro.2020.01.027", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.arthro.2020.01.027" }