ACL

A new research paper finds the overall rate of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries among high school athletes is significantly higher among females, who are especially likely to experience ACL tears while playing basketball, soccer and lacrosse.

After her successful recovery from a torn ACL, one Texas high school soccer player decided that other athletes shouldn't have to deal with the same emotional pain she felt while going through my injury, so she started a website to provide emotional support, information and advice to other athletes trying to bounce back from similar sports-related injuries.

Pre- or early adolescence appears to be the best time to start a neuromuscular training program in order to reduce the number of injuries female athletes suffer to their anterior cruciate ligaments, says a new study.

Female adolescent soccer players who followed a 15-minute neuromuscular warm-up program twice a week in training over the course of a season experienced a 64% reduction in the rate of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury compared to players who did not follow such a program, according to a 2012 Swedish study.

While physical therapists assess readiness of an athlete to return to sports after ACL reconstructive surgery in a variety of ways, research suggests that performance on a series of single leg hopping tests is a good yardstick.

Young athletes who delay ACL reconstructive surgery more than 150 days after injury experience higher rates of other kinds of knee injuries, including medial meniscal tears, say a 2012 study.

Male athletes are at increased risk of cartilage lesions in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)-injured knees, placing them at higher risk of developing the debilitating joint condition osteoarthritis (OA), says a new study presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's 2011 Annual Meeting in San Diego.  A delay to reconstructive surgery did not increase the risk of developing full-thickness cartilage lesions, as long as surgery occurred within 12 months of injury. 

A new Australian study appears to pour cold water on the widely held belief that most athletes can return to their pre-injury level of competition within 12 months after reconstructive surgery to repair an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear.  Instead, fully two-thirds of the athletes studied were found not to have returned to their pre-injury level of competition one year after surgery.

The period between the end of physical therapy and the start of sports-specific conditioning is a critical time frame for young athletes after an an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear or rupture, reconstructive surgery, and months of rehabilitation.