Interview
Finding and managing potential: The PREHAB SCREEN

The PREHAB SCREEN® is a central component of the module Prehab. In a short interview with the CEO of the OSINSTITUT, Matthias Keller, we talked about the requirements of a screen and the PREHAB SCREEN® itself.

OSINSTITUT: In your opinion, which requirements does a screening require to be useful?

Matthias Keller: It is particularly important for a screening to be implementable, both in terms of time and in terms of the equipment required. It must be able to take place in the setting in which a therapist, sports scientist or trainer works. In addition, screening should be simple enough for anyone to understand and use. My experience is that complex and too time-consuming procedures are not even used in practice. It is also important to be able to draw appropriate training-therapeutic conclusions from the results obtained. The best data is worth nothing if I don't know what to do with it. In general, there are five principles for screening: it must be implementable, relevant, individualised, standardised and interpretable.

OSINSTITUT: With the PREHAB SCREEN®, you and some colleagues from the institute have developed a screen that can be used to create preventive training plans. What distinguishes the PREHAB SCREEN® from other preventive screenings?

Matthias Keller: The word "screening" can be used in different ways. The PREHAB SCREEN® is not about filtering out people who are at particularly high risk for injury or pain, and it is certainly not a clinical tool for making a diagnosis. The PREHAB SCREEN® is completely designed to create preventive exercise programmes as quickly as possible. The focus is therefore on the consequences of the results. It is about identifying a person's potentials so that the therapist or trainer gets an idea in the shortest possible time which exercises can be selected most quickly to improve the basic movement patterns.

The second special feature of the PREHAB SCREEN is its classification into different loads from low threshold to high threshold. All tests included in the screen can be put together in a modular way. This means that you do not have to perform every test, but can select the most relevant ones for the specific case. The functional profile of a person thus influences the selection and number of individual tests.

OSINSTITUT: Based on which considerations did you develop the PREHAB SCREEN®?

Matthias Keller: Our goal was to develop a screen that is easy to use anywhere and for which no equipment is needed. In addition to complex movement patterns, isolated movements should also be tested. Mobility and motor control play an important role here. Another crucial point for us was that the PREHAB SCREEN® should also be a good complement to our Return to Activity Algorithms (RTAA®), which is primarily a stress test.  

OSINSTITUT: Why are the tests divided into isolated, integrated and dynamised?

Matthias Keller: This distinction is actually based on exercises. Here you have a similar set-up: there are exercises that are performed quickly, explosively and dynamically, more complex exercises that are motorically demanding but without a dynamic impact and there are isolated exercises, for example mobilisation for the ankle or the hip. Everything has a relevance and is conditional on each other.

In certain complex movements, certain isolated potential can also remain "hidden". Therefore, it is important to also check structures in isolation if one suspects that there might be a contributing or causative factor. For example, there may be a pattern problem with the knee bend, or there may be limited mobility in the ankle, hip or thoracic spine. Therefore, one should also examine regions in isolation to find out where the potential actually lies. In addition, some regions do not appear at all during integrated movements, such as the big toe during a squat. For running and jogging, however, the mobility of the big toe is very important. Therefore, it makes sense to look at it in isolation and so on. In this way, you get different levels in a functional profile from isolated to integrated to dynamised and thus gain information that you can map in a targeted way in a training plan.

OSINSTITUT: And what do I do with the results at the end of the day?

Matthias Keller: The results show me where potentials lie within a movement pattern - isolated to integrated. I get an idea of which targeted exercises I can use to achieve improvements, combined with the goal of giving the trainee a better basis for the stresses of everyday life and sport.

The interview was moderated by Nils Borgstedt