ACL / Knee Injury Prevention-Is This the Best We Can Do? Part 1 of 2
- Sep 24, 2014
- 2 min read
In 2013 Philadelphia Children’s Hospital did a 10 year study on their knee surgery invoices. From 2003 to 2013 they found that ACL surgeries for patients 18 and under had increased by 400%. They found that female athletes were more likely to suffer a knee injury than male athletes in the same sport.
Experts in the pediatric sports medicine community attribute this increase to several factors. There are 10 times more female collegiate athletes today than in the 1970’s due to the effects of Title IX. The trend toward sport specialization focusing exclusively on one sport often with no off-season is also a significant factor in the rise in injury rates.
In a July, 2013 article in Contemporary Pediatrics Drs. Daharmsi & LeBella did extensive film study of actual ACL injuries. They found that approximately 80% of injuries occur without contact with another player. The injuries usually occurred when landing from a jump, changing direction rapidly (cutting), and decelerating from a sprint (attempting to stop). Injuries occurred typically with the knee in full extension or close to full extension.
Regardless of the cause tearing an ACL (or any ligament or tendon) is a big deal. The tendon gets replaced with a cadaver ACL or the surgeon “harvests” connective tissue from another part of the body to serve as a replacement ACL. This obviously requires two surgeries. How does that affect the future durability of the donor body part?
We have come a long way developing improved surgical techniques. In the past it was common to wait until the athlete reached skeletal maturity before repairing the ACL. Today surgeons can successfully repair ACL tears in young athletes. However they can do nothing to prevent the onset of arthritis in 10 to 20 years which some surgeon’s state occurs to 50% or more of patients. Clearly if there is any way to avoid any type of knee injury it should be a priority.
Conditioning programs can help reduce injury rates. The FIFA 11+ warm up program was introduced at the 2010 World Cup. It is a warm up, isometric and plyometric training program. Soccer teams that use this program at least twice a week experienced a 30 to 50% reduction in injury rates. If this is the case why is it not commonly used as a tool for injury prevention in all sports? Where is the coverage in the sports media on the benefits of this training program? Hello, SportsCenter! ESPN? Anyone in the sports media?
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