Anterior Cruciate Ligament Essay

Studies have also shown that women in particular, unfortunately have a disadvantage in life when compared to male counterparts, and that is one pertaining to their higher risk for ACL injury. Due to a neuromuscular imbalance that is concomitant with overactive quadriceps strength compared to hamstring strength, females tend to place more stress on the ACL. Accordingly, this increases the pressure on the ACL leading to a higher prevalence of injury that will arise more on the female spectrum than that of the male (Myer et al., 2009). Furthermore, this is important to be aware of for female athletes and for the Physical Therapists who treat them in efforts to provide educational information regarding the relationship of stronger hamstrings correlating to a lesser chance of ACL injury. Personally, I have worked with athletic females in the past as a personal trainer and while I was not strengthening hamstrings with the direct objective to prevent an ACL injury, I was cognizant of the notion that a balanced quadriceps and hamstring ratio was necessary to avoid lower extremity injuries as a

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) has limited range of motion, which leads to it being the most frequently injured ligament singularly (Ireland, 1999). This study was conducted to present the epidemiology on ACL injuries in female athletes (Ireland, 1999). Epidemiology is the part of science that focuses on the causes, effects, and patterns of disease and health conditions that occur in specific populations. The epidemiology in this article focuses on female athletes that have had a noncontact ACL injury playing either basketball or soccer (Ireland, 1999).

Football and track and field involve repetitive bouts of quick acceleration for short and long periods, sudden changes in direction of maximum force may contribute to the high rate of hamstring strain commonly found amongst these sports. (Ropiak & Bosco, 2012). Regardless of all the aforementioned studies, there is not one exact cause of injury during high speed, kicking sports (Lees, Asai, Andersen, Nunome, & Sterzing,

With an ever increasing number of people becoming involved with athletic activities, there is an increasing number of injuries occurring which can be devastating for the individual. Most of the injuries that affect athletes occur in one of four structures in the human body: bones, muscles, tendons, or ligaments. Because ligaments attach bone to bone and play a major part in providing stability for joints, the major stabilizing ligament in the knee, the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), assists in performing everyday actions of the human body including sitting, standing, walking, running, dancing, and participating in other sports. The injury that specifically affects this ligament is very serious and always

The Anterior Cruciate Ligament also known as the ACL is deemed the most commonly torn ligament in the knee and can result from both contact and noncontact injuries. Most Anterior Cruciate Ligament injuries result from an extreme force on the lateral side of the person’s knee causing a valgus force which pushes the knee inward (Kisner & Colby, 2012, pp. 802-803). This injury to the side of the knee can also cause a “Terrible Triad” injury which also injures both the medial meniscus and the medial collateral ligament (Kisner & Colby, 2012, p. 803). Our textbook further states that “the most common noncontact mechanism is a rotational mechanism in which the tibia is externally rotated on the planted foot….this mechanism can account for as many as 78% of all ACL injuries” (Kisner & Colby, 2012, p. 803). If the person does not seek medical help with this injury they are susceptible to also injuring the remaining support ligaments as well. Patients usually present with joint effusion; possibly 25 degrees of flexion, joint swelling if blood vessels are involved, limited ROM, stress pain and instability along with quads avoidance gait patterns (Kisner & Colby, 2011, p. 208)

Several recent studies demonstrate that the rate of ACL injuries among women can be significantly reduced by following proper neuromuscular training (NMT) and conditioning programs.

INCREASE IN TEARS Anterior cruciate ligament injuries are receiving a great deal of notice because of the incidence of injury that occurs not only in the athletic population but also in those individuals who are recreationally active (Russell, 2006). Each year in the United States there are approximately 250,000 ACL injuries. This is approximately 1 in 3,000 in the general population (Boden, 2000). Of these injuries, about 175,000 require reconstructive surgery. These surgeries had an estimated cost of over two billion dollars annually in the United States (Yu, 2007). These statistics alone make it obvious that this injury occurs very often. The ACL is one of the most commonly disrupted ligaments in the knee. While the prevalence of the injury has increased, so has the number of athletes in the world since ACL injury research first began. Women are now allowed to participate in sports and new sports are being participated in

In her article, “High School ACL Injury Rates”, Dawn Comstock shows that in 2009, about sixty percent, of all sports surgeries involve the knee; within the sixty percent, about fifty percent of the knee surgeries are ACL reconstructions. Sports that could have a higher tendency for an athlete to tear the ACL are sports that require an athlete to decelerate quickly or need to cut and change direction instantly. For example, an article shows that a high-impact sport has a higher percentage of ACL tears when compared to a low-impact sport, such as football and women’s soccer; football has a forty-one percent ACL injury rate while women’s soccer only has nineteen percent. Not only does the level of impact effect the likelihood of ACL injury, but the gender of the athlete as well. When looking at women’s and men’s soccer, men have a merely thirteen percent ACL injury rate because their physical structure along with their techniques when doing certain exercises.

Grade one strains/tears being the mildest and grade three strains/tears being the most extreme. The ligament has experienced trivial damage in a grade one sprain by that of a minor strain, but is still able to offer substantial stability to the knee joint. A grade two sprain, also known as a partial tear of the ligament, overstretches the ligament to the point where it loses its tautness. Grade three sprains, most commonly referred to as a “complete tear” of the ligament, splits the ligament into two pieces, leaving the knee joint hardly stable. Partial tears of the ACL are infrequent; most ACL injuries are complete or near complete tears.

In sport an ACL injury is the most frequently ruptured ligament of the knee (Johnson, 1983), it is described by Flynn 2005 as a serious, common and costly injury (Flynn, 2005). In many cases an ACL injury is the result of noncontact and studies done by Barrett et al 1972 and Beckett et al 1992 support this as they reported that 78% and 71% of ACL injured patients described noncontact mechanisms of injury such as landing with too much knee extension or change in direction (pivoting) (Barrett et al 1972 and Beckett et al 1992) and also can happen due to contact such dominant kicking leg, fall on the knee or even a forceful blow to the knee. Bjordal et al 1997, in their findings showed that 58% and 42% of ACL injuries were

Jong Ra et al.’s (2014) study measured the ceiling effects of the Lysholm score and the IKDC subjective score when utilized for evaluating functional outcomes post-ACL reconstruction and compared their concurrent validity by assessing the correlation of each score with a one-leg hop test. This was a retrospective study, consisting of 134 participants who underwent an ACL reconstruction between May 2007 and April 2011. The authors of this study set up the inclusion criteria as an ACL rupture with or without a meniscus tear and participation in the 6 and 12-month evaluation. The study sample consisted of 134 participants, including 111 males and 23 females with an average age of 27.2 years who underwent ACL reconstruction with a single-bundle hamstring autograft. A subgroup evaluation was done for subjects who were not athletically active but only participated in recreational sports and had a pre-injury Tegner score of 6 or less. The recreational sports subgroup consisted of 100 subjects with an average age of 28.6 years and an average Tegner score of 5.1.

The Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) is one of the most common knee injuries in female sports today. The ACL is a ligament that attaches the femur and tibia to the knee allowing the knee to bend while still being stable and supporting the whole body. Dr. Russel F. Warren, a physician for the New York Giants football team, explains, “The ACL prevents the shin bone (tibia) from moving too far forward on the thigh bone (femur) and keeps the knee from twisting inward excessively.” When athletes tear their ACL there is a greater chance that they have hurt or another ligament in their knee such as the LCL, MCL or Meniscus; which is cartilage that absorbs shock from the body’s pressure (MedlinePlus). The ACL is strong, but one wrong move could result

The Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) of the knee is arguably one of the most notorious parts of the body in the sporting industry. When torn and repaired with surgery, it can leave an athlete out of play for up to 12 months if therapy is consistent over that time period1. There are several different ways to repair the ligament in order to regain functionality and recover stability. In any case, physical therapy plays a vital role in regaining these abilities and returning a person’s knee back to normal.

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is a common sports injury occurs widely in the USA with the majority of suffering by healthy individuals with 70% of non contact period, during a variety of movements such as jump landing, cutting and pivoting (21). Different risk factors should be considered for injury, such as environmental, hormonal and biomechanical (18, 19). ACL injury prevalence is very high in soccer as well as other sports in females compared with males (29). Anterior shear force, valgus collapse, quadriceps to hamstring strength ratio (1, 21, 35, 37) are considered as other main risk factors in both genders. Co-contraction of the hamstring and quadriceps has been shown to provide dynamic stability to the frontal plane at the knee that protects maximum knee abduction loading (35). So, the main focus of the study should be on muscular strength between agonist –antagonist muscle of lower limbs and recovery after injury. Female athletes get injured almost 2-8 time higher than the male counterparts (1,5,7,19,21,24,29,33,35). Interesting point for comparing injuries in sports, dominancy of leg plays a role in ACL injury. In a non contact injury, females are more prone to get injured in their supporting leg, whereas male soccer athletes tend to injure the ACL in their preferred kicking leg (5). Biomechanical point of view, such as more extended hip-knee landing technique postures, knee pressure

Soccer is one of the most common sports that causes injuries without making contact with another player. According to the Federation Internationale de Futbol Association (FIFA), Soccer is the World’s most popular organized sport with over 200 million males and 21 million females registered in the FIFA (Giza). Soccer has become more popular in females in the last decade and is a great recreational sport to be apart of. In Montana, girls that play soccer are prepared for all weather mentally but not necessarily physically. Many girls every year are sat on the bench from injuries. Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries are the most common injury a young girl can get. Soccer is a game played on a turf or grass field. The ground could change within minutes if it started raining or snowing. This causes it to become slippery making it more of a change for an athlete to injure themselves. When a soccer player kicks the soccer ball they put all body weight on one leg to swing their other leg to kick the ball. The continuous stopping, going and turing is a factor that causes most ACL injuries. Soccer is just one of many sports that injuries can occur in and is more likely to happen without contact with another person on the field.