"Across the board it's a pretty significant impairment in [people's] ability to lead happy and healthy lives," Glaviano says.
Glaviano hypothesized that these deficits may be related to the size of certain muscles around the knee. Specifically, he was interested in the glute and quad muscles. "We thought trying to control for [sex] would allow us to answer our question a little more straightforwardly rather than having to worry about known differences in muscle size between males and females," Glaviano says.
"The four main muscles that a lot of the research prioritizes as the target for rehabilitation were not actually smaller in size," Glaviano says."I think it demonstrates the need to individualize patients' treatment. We as clinicians and researchers need to quantify which muscles have impairment and target those in a patient's treatment."