The effectiveness of functional brace in the treatment of tibia fracture: A review of literature

Background and Objectives: Various treatment methods have been used to manage tibia fracture, including conservative and surgical treatment. Various studies investigated the effects of functional brace on fracture of tibia. This review was aimed to summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of functional brace on tibia fracture. Methods: An electronic search was carried out through internationally published scholarly articles in EBSCO, Medline, PubMed, Embase, and ISI Web of Knowledge (from 1950 to 2020) with the following keywords: tibia fracture, healing, conservative treatment, functional orthosis, brace, and patellar tendon-bearing orthosis. The quality of the papers was assessed using the Down and Black tool. Results: On the basis of the keywords, 50 articles were found, of which 11 articles were selected in accordance with the selection criteria. Most of studies support the use of orthosis for tibial fracture. The scores of reporting, external validity, internal validity (bias), and internal validity (confounding) varied between 2–7, 1–2, 1–5, and 2–4, respectively. Conclusions: One of the most important treatment methods for tibia fracture is use of functional brace. Based on the results of the available literature, use of functional brace is a good approach for stable tibia fracture. Some parameters, such as the condition of surrounding muscles, initial shortening, angulations of tibia, and intact of fibula, play significant roles in this regard.