Anterior Cruciate Trauma Case Study

Each year, approximately a quarter of a million physically active young people experience an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, and seventy percent of these ACL injuries will be sustained while engaging in non-contact activities such as sudden deceleration while landing (Begalle et al., 2012). This type of injury is grossly detrimental not only on the occasion in which it occurs but also for the subsequent years to come. The majority of individuals who injure their ACL also go on to either, re-injure that same ACL, or injure the opposite knee. Furthermore, our bodies are put in tremendously vulnerable planes of motion during sporting events, especially during activities such as, basketball, football, or soccer. In this day

Dr. Boden of the Orthopedic Center in Rockville states, “Young women are two to eight times more likely than their male counterparts to injure their ACL.” Although there are some factors that put others at a higher risk of tearing their ACL, like this gender one, ACL tears are common and can happen

A saliva sample of the subjects was collected within 72 hours of the ACL injury in order to determine what phase of the menstrual cycle they were in. It was then shipped to a lab for testing via radioimmunoassay. Figure 3 shows the results in bar graph form of what stage the subjects tore their ACL in (Slauterbeck). The results show that when the subjects were in days one and two of menses, the number of ACL tears increases over 50 percent. This case study concludes that women who are participating in activity during days one and two of menses have a 50 percent or greater increased risk of tearing their ACL. The estrogen and progesterone levels in the body during this time are very low when referring to Figure 2. This could be due to the lack of tissue repair when E and P levels are low, which would make the ACL weaker (Slauterbeck).

The anterior cruciate ligament, more commonly known as ACL, is the most common knee ligament injury. An ACL injury mainly affects athletes or those participating in athletic activities. Over the years, sports have become more popular which has led to an increase in ACL injuries. This increase led orthopedic surgeons to create many operations over the past fifteen years that reconstruct this ligament.

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)

Female participation in competitive athletics has increased significantly in recent years. Compared to their male counterparts, they are at a 2 to 10 times greater risk for ACL injury (Edward et al, 2015, p. 368) There are two main mechanisms for an ACL injury: Contact, and non-contact. 70% of all reported ACL injuries are non-contact in nature, whereas the remaining 30% involve contact from an outside force such as an opposing player, a goalpost, or another object on the field or court (Silvers, 2009, p.83).

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.

The most common ligamentous injury to the knee is injury to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) (Teske 2010), and it is the second most common injury in the lower extremity. It has become so common of an injury that 1 in 3000 individuals in the United States will be affected with an ACL tear (Micheo 2010) and there are 200,000 new cases per year (Wilk 2012). It is most commonly seen in people 15-30 years of age (Teske 2010). It is also more common in females than males (Fayad 2003, Teske 2010, Bowerman 2006). This is due to increased joint laxity in post-pubescent females compared to post-pubescent males (Bowerman 2006) and differences in muscle activation. Males tend to have a more balanced quadriceps to hamstrings ratio

Injury of the ACL is now the most common ligamentous injury of the knee and accounts for about 30 injuries per 100,000 of the population (Irrgang, 1996). Over time it became apparent that multiple variables act in combination to influence ACL injury risk(Wojtys, 2003). Risk

In the final analysis, ACL tears are more commonly found in females because of the anatomical structure of women, improper body mechanics, and the differences in female’s circulating hormones. The human female structure has many differences to the male structure, such as muscle stiffness, stronger quadriceps than hamstrings, a wider pelvis bone, and smaller intercondylar notches. These differences in male and female structure can lead to why ACL tears are more frequent in females. Another reason as to why females are more prone to knee ligament tears is because of of the improper body mechanics performed by women. During sports, contact or noncontact studies show that women perform cutting movements that are more erect rather than a crouched

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is a common sports injury occurs widely in the USA with the majority of suffered by healthy individuals with 70%of non contact period, during variety of movements such as jump landing, cutting and pivoting (9). Different risk factors should be considered for injury such as environmental, hormonal and biomechanical (8, 1). ACL injury prevalence is very high in soccer as well as other sports in females compared with males (15). Anterior shear force, valgus collapse, quadriceps to hamstring strength ratio (9, 11, 16, 6) are consider 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 (6). So, main focus of the study should be on muscular strength between agonist –antagonist muscle of lower limbs and recovery after injury. Female athletes gets injured almost 2-8 time higher than the male counterparts (22,6,1,3,9,10,12,15,16). Interesting point in 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(22).Biomechanical point of view such as more extended hip-knee landing technique postures, knee pressure in different plane

As previously mentioned most ACL injuries happen from non-contact. The differences in lower extremities between genders are possible risk factors for ACL injuries during sports participation (Yu et al., 2005). Yu et al., (2005) compare the difference between genders in lower extremity motion of adolescent soccer players between ages of eleven and sixteen. Focusing on knee flexion and hip flexion the results showed that young female soccer players had both decreased knee and hip angles at ground contact and decreased knee and hip flexion motions during the landing of the stop-jump task. Yu et al., (2005) demonstrated that landing with a smaller knee flexion angles could have increase load on the ACL, concluding that these changes occur after the age of 12 and increase with age. In addition, females with smaller knee flexion can limit their sagittal plane motion when landing, increasing their ACL risk even more (Pollard, Sigward, & Powers, 2010). A clear difference in the knee and hip flexion was shown based on female and male

In Noyes and Barber-Westin’s study (2015), they developed a neuromuscular retraining program that proved effective in decreasing ACL injury rate in female athletes. This program included a dynamic warm up, a jump/plyometric component and a flexibility component (cite). The purpose of a plyometric component was to teach and emphasize proper jumping and landing techniques. There were 1000 trained female athletes aged 13-18 years old included in the study and the noncontact ACL injury rate of 700 of these athletes was compared to 1120 control athletes to provide

This essay deals with the current treatments, rehabilitation procedures and onsets following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. Within this essay, there will be information including the causes, characteristics, and symptoms of ACL injuries. Throughout the United States, there are estimated to be 200,000 ACL injuries per year with 100,000 of those injuries being treated through ACL reconstruction (Evans, Shaginaw, & Bartolozz, 2014). With a satisfactory ACL reconstruction outcome between 75%-97%. From the 10%-15% failure rate of ACL reconstruction, the primary fault is due to technical mistakes at 70% (Samitier, Marcano, Alentorn-Geli, Cugot, Former, & Moser,