Those are just a couple of articles that discuss the self-reported fear that is involved in an athlete’s head. Numerous studies have shown this and it definitely needs to be understood and addressed as the program is progressed. A good majority of patients have some form of kinesiophobia after an ACL reconstruction and we need to be able to address that too. We know the mental component involving fear of movement/reinjury, or kinesiophobia, is often the last to come back for the athlete. With retear rates so high, there has to be a better strategy to get our athletes back to their sport safely. Surprisingly enough, this group also reported that 29.5% of young, active athletes who returned to cutting and pivoting sports after an ACL reconstruction suffered a second ACL injury 24 months after return to their sport.Ī recent review by Wiggins et al showed that young, active athletes are at greater risk to suffer another ACL injury after ACL reconstruction and return to sport compared with uninjured adolescents. Paterno and his group reported 23.5% of young, active patients suffered a second ACL injury in the first 12 months after RTS following ACLR.Īnother study by Paterno and his colleagues showed 37.5% suffered a non-contact retear within 24 months after the initial reconstruction. The risk of a second ACL injury in a young, active individual is high after a previous ACL reconstruction and return to sport. Is there a best algorithm that will decrease retear rates? If so, why are we not using it for injury reduction programs…or are we? Risks for ACL Reconstruction Failure With that, I wanted to do an extensive literature search to figure out what was the best way to truly test our athletes to determine their readiness. I carefully watch them move, advance their strength and power exercises and chat about how they feel about their knee.
I believe in slowly returning my athletes to their sport in a time that is safe. I have people hop, skip and jump but don’t necessarily do a formal hop test. I’m not going to lie, I don’t have a formal algorithm like some. It’s an important topic because of the lack of general consensus on what’s the best way to assess return to play testing, never mind the relatively high failure rates.įor this post, I wanted to discuss the return to play testing after an ACL reconstruction to see what the literature says. Research surrounding ACL surgery is abundant and I have written about it in previous posts on and for Mike on his website. Are we returning people too fast? If you want to learn exactly how Lenny and I return people after ACL reconstruction be sure to check out our acclaimed online program on the Evaluation and Treatment of the Knee.ĪCL reconstruction surgery continues to dominate the sports medicine and orthopaedic world. Lenny discusses a really important topic right now regarding the safe return to sport after ACL reconstruction.
This week’s article is a guest post from Lenny Macrina.