Reconstructive Surgery Exercise

Background: The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is a common and limiting injury among young active population. ACL reconstruction is associated to significant technical advances in recent decades and to a growing trend for the use of hamstring tendon autograft. The use of this graft is apparently associated with lower rates of postoperative morbidity. However there is some concern regarding the risk of laxity.

There are several different kinds of "common" injuries such as a broken leg, rolled ankle, or a sprained knee. The one I will be researching and describing is the ACL injury. Which is one of the most common sports injuries? As Medical Definition states, "The ACL is a ligament in the knee that crosses from the underside of the femur (the thigh bone) to the top of the tibia (the bigger bone in the lower leg)." In essence, the ACL is a vital part of an athlete 's lateral lower body movement which is crucial in any sport where an athlete or a person moves their legs. Therefore players who participate in any kind of activity that involves moving their lower body need their ACL to function in their activity, or just to even

ACL tear is a very serious surgery and requires a great amount of time to heal. Allotting a time period of 7 months to a year to get back to pre-injured state. Contingent on when the injury occurs, ultimately could put you out of a whole sports season. ACL’s are a tricky injury and the more time the better because the sooner you try to compete, the higher the risk you have of re-injury. The longer you allow for the healing process, the better off you will be later on and your chance of fully recovering back to your previous pre-injury state is very

Anterior cruciate ligament injuries (ACL) can be detrimental for individuals who want to excel in their sport. The debilitating injury leads to a period of regression in performance essentially deconditioning the athlete, which can be a huge drawback for individuals of different levels of competition. The knee is one of the most commonly injured joints of the human body and carries an increased risk of injury with sports participation. Recent research states approximately 40% of all ligamentous knee injuries are ACL related and 70% of all ACL injuries occur during sports (Lam et al., 2009). Sporting activities involving jumping, cutting and decelerating are ranked the highest provokers of ACL injury (Renstrom et al., 2008). ACL injuries have produced a mass of research surrounding the mechanisms and biomechanics leading to the injury and the rehabilitation outcomes to effectively bring back the original state of an individuals impaired limb. The majority of literature in the present has undertaken an overview of rehabilitation and the effects it may or may not have on individuals at a neuromuscular and proprioceptive level. These interventions may require further research and revision on the programs delivered itself to foresee what may be optimal due to the majority of research indicating the various effects an ACL injury has at a neurophysiological and mechanical level. The programs are of upmost importance as the redevelopment of robust sufficient muscle mass after a

The next step, if one chooses, is surgery and recovery. To repair the ligament, most surgeons will take part of another tendon, which has similar tissue to a ligament, in the leg and pull it through a tunnel that is drilled through the tibia into the femur ("ACL Tears and Reconstruction"). After surgery, a patient usually begins physical therapy three to four days after the procedure. Physical therapy helps strengthen the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the knee that were affected by the accident. In order to get back to normal as soon as possible, a patient needs to attend physical therapy two or three times a week for about ten weeks. After that time is up, depending on the progress of the patient, the therapist will reduce the appointments to once a week. As the patient continues to strengthen and progress, he or she will be allowed to start performing more advanced things. For example, most patients will have to start doing ten-minute jogs to gradually get the knee used to impact again. A full recovery usually takes about six or seven months, for athletes coming back to sports. This process of time may be lengthened depending on the patient. Athletes who try to return early are at an extremely high risk of tearing the ACL again. Full recovery for an athlete can include, being able to play with contact or jump and dive. Although a patient is released to play his or her sport again, that does not mean the patients knee is completely back to normal again. For instance, the athlete will need to a wear a knee brace for any type of physical activity for at least a year after returning back to

The sports that are more inclined to suffer ACL tears include soccer, basketball, football and tennis (Souryal, n.d.). The University of California, San Francisco reveals that the “ACL injury has an annual incidence of more than 200,000 cases with ~100,000 of these knees reconstructed annually (Kim, 2009). The vulnerability of a torn ACL in athletes is 1,000 to one (Souryal, n.d.). //////////////////////////////

The anterior cruciate ligament is a stabilizing force within the knee joint. The ACL prevents hyperextension as well as limiting excessive tibial rotation and valgus/varus stresses of the knee joint. Athletes are expected to perform maneuvers that put excessive force on their knees. An ACL tear is a common injury among athletes resulting in the need for surgical intervention. After surgery and physical therapy, the goal usually included to return to sports at their prior level of competition while trying to prevent reinjury. What criteria do clinicians use to determine when the athlete is ready? Several studies were reviewed to answer this question. The results included several variables that could predispose an athlete to reinjury, several

Many athletes do not realize how important the anterior cruciate ligament is and the roll it plays in their bodies. The rope-like ACL, just over an inch long, stabilizes the knee during pivoting and twisting movements (Swift). The ACL is cruel not just because it breaks so often, but because unlike most ligaments, it does not heal (Swift). Ligaments have a bone-to-bone connection, and the two bones that the anterior cruciate ligament connects are known as the femur and tibia. The ACL is located behind the patella, otherwise known as the kneecap, and above the tibia (shinbone)

A torn ACL will not be able to heal on its on however, there are non-surgical options to help ease the injury. A concise and careful rehabilitation program will help aid the physical recovery of an ACL tear, easing the pain and growing the supporting muscles. Non-surgical treatment is only ever seen in elderly patients, with little to no activity levels. An MRI scan is often implicated to try and discover additional injuries that often occur with a torn ACL, which may change the way in which the surgery is conducted (Sutter Health, 2016). Surgical treatments often see the use of a graft, usually taken from the patient’s leg, particularly from either the hamstring or patella tendon (Wallace, B 2017). The graft acts as scaffolding for the new

While there is a higher incidence in BPTB grafts than HS or allografts, the overall incidence is higher in patients that sustained an ACL injury than those that did not. A meta-analysis conducted by Ajuied et al, found a relative risk of 4.71 of developing moderate or severe osteoarthritis, on the Kellegren and Lawrence grading system, ten years after sustaining an ACL injury and undergoing ACL reconstruction (not organized by graft choice) compared to the contralateral unaffected knee (10). Ajuid et al found that with non-operative ACL treatment the relative risk of moderate to severe osteoarthritis on the Kellegren and Lawrence grading system was 4.98 when compared to the contralateral unaffected knee (10). The data from the meta-analysis conducted by Ajuied et al shows that the relative risk of moderate to severe osteoarthritis, on the Kellegren and Lawrence scale, of the affected knee compared to the unaffected knee has decreased with current methods of ACL reconstruction; however, osteoarthritis is still a major problem plaguing those that sustained ACL injury. Typically Osteoarthritis is an illness of the middle aged to elderly (11). With ACL injuries most often occurring in a young athletic population, osteoarthritis is seen at a much younger age in patients with ACL injuries than the normal progression of the illness in individuals who did not sustain an ACL injury (10). Osteoarthritis involves destruction of the

Surgical and non-surgical treatments are the two proposed protocols following anterior cruciate ligament injury, the rehabilitation programs in the both protocols revealed similar outcomes at two years. The choice of treatment depends on the functional stability of the injured knee as well as on the injured subject. The rehabilitation regime for the surgical treatment starts prior to the operation and aims to regain full range of motion, improve lower limb strength and function as much as possible. Following the operation, the rehabilitation program consists of four stages with different goals and milestones. The program exercises start from simple range of motion exercises to sport-specific exercises. Close kinetic chain and gait training

An important aspect of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction is a postoperative rehabilitation program that aims to return the patient to their daily work activities as soon as possible. There are many variations to a rehabilitation program that have common checkpoints that a physical trainer strives to complete. One variation that is used deals with neuromuscular electrical stimulation and its use to counteract strength loss present after ACL reconstruction. The purpose of the randomized controlled trial was to compare the effect of utilizing traditional neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) or a neuromuscular electrical stimulation integrated knee sleeve to a regular postoperative rehabilitation program.

My readiness for physical activity is poor. I resonantly re-tore my ACL and had to get a bone graft before I can get reconstructive surgery. I can’t cut or pivot until 6 months after reconstructive surgery. Once my ACL is healed and I’m cleared to return to sports, I will begin to play lacrosse again. Until then most of my physical activity will be physical therapy rehabbing my

Imagine you are going along playing a sport you love and then all of a sudden you step wrong. The knee bends back and you hear a loud pop followed by excruciating pain that drops you to the floor. You find out later that the pain you felt was your ACL tearing. There is nothing holding your knee stable anymore. It is then followed by a 6-9 month recovery. It is crazy how fast one little thing can change your whole year. I have torn both of my ACL’s in the past two years. I have had to recover twice. I have talked to a bunch of doctors, nurses, physical therapists, and athletic trainers. Everyone has a chance of tearing their ACL, girls even have a better chance of tearing it because of the structure

As sports prove to contribute a numerous amount of injuries, parents discourage their children to engage themselves in sports since rehabilitation time and surgery expenses can accumulate over the years. It is a common fact that sports such as football and lacrosse commonly produce ACL tears in athletes. Because ACL tears in the knee ligaments produce long time rehabilitation, the athlete has trouble adjusting back to the sport after recovering. Surgery for ACL tears and other common sports injuries can accumulate many health-care expenses which financially burden many families. For example, if an athlete obtains five injuries in his career, he will spend about twenty hours total in the operation room and five months of rehabilitation time, leading to a waste in thousands of dollars as each individual operation can cost up to $50,000. Post-operation time forces both the athlete and the athlete’s family to feel helpless in terms of finance and recovery time.