Why the study?
What is the prevalence and degree of joint laxity in normal Chinese children compared to Caucasian children?
What is the prevalence and degree of joint laxity in normal Chinese children compared to Caucasian children?
Chinese children exhibit significantly higher rates of joint laxity compared to Caucasian children, which diminishes with age.
Higher joint laxity in Chinese children may require ethnicity-specific norms; leaves open impact on injury risk or hypermobility diagnosis.
Joint laxity was measured clinically in 2,360 normal Chinese children aged 3-13 years with equal sex distribution using the Carter Wilkinson five tests and scoring system. Results showed minimal differences due to gender. The degree of joint laxity diminished with age. The knee extension and ankle extension tests were more sensitive than other tests. Chinese children were far more lax throughout the age range, with 100% "laxity" at age 3, 67% laxity at age 6, and 28% laxity at age 12, in contrast to 50, 5, and 1% laxity in the same age group respectively, in large series of Caucasian children.
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Cheng et al. (1991) studied this question.
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