How anterior cruciate ligament injuries are treated

  ACL injury is the most common type of injury in sports medicine. If the ligament is severely damaged and completely ruptured without timely treatment, it can cause a series of secondary injuries to the intra-articular cartilage, meniscus and surrounding musculo-ligaments, leading to later knee dysfunction and eventually to osteoarthritis. Previous studies have suggested that surgical treatment of ACL injuries (ruptures) may improve the patient’s ability to return to activity and reduce the risk of re-injury to the knee joint.  However, there is no high-level literature demonstrating that surgical treatment is superior to non-surgical treatment. The Norwegian authors Hege et al. analyzed data comparing surgical and conservative treatment of ACL injuries (ruptures), the level of knee function, and the probability of knee re-injury and found that surgical and non-surgical treatment of ACL injuries (ruptures) of the knee had minimal impact on clinical functional prognosis.  Regardless of the treatment modality, a significant proportion of patients with postoperative knee injuries do not return to normal preoperative levels of motor function and have a high probability of re-injury in the long term. Future research should focus on how to improve the clinical prognosis of these patients after knee injury. The findings of this study were published in JBJS (The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery), which has been the most respected source of information for orthopaedic surgeons and researchers for the past 100 years and is the gold standard for peer-reviewed scientific information in the field of orthopaedics.  Most clinicians now recommend ACL reconstruction for patients with ACL injuries (ruptures) who have a strong desire to regain motion. The ideal ACL reconstruction is to surgically reconstruct the anatomy and biomechanics of the ACL and, with proper rehabilitation, to “ligamentize” the intra-articular graft and restore knee function.  Safe and controlled rehabilitation without compromising joint stability is essential to the success of the procedure. Proper rehabilitation facilitates the revascularization of the grafted tendon and the coverage and nutrition of the synovial membrane, promotes the remodeling and healing of the graft according to mechanics, accelerates the evolution of the tendon to ligament, restores normal joint mobility, muscle strength and proprioception, and promotes maximum recovery of knee function.  Every week at the specialist clinic, we encounter patients with ACL injuries (ruptures). Some young patients are physically fit and often recover from acute ACL injuries without significant discomfort in their daily walking activities, and are less able to accept reconstructive surgery; others are concerned about poor surgical results due to failure to adhere to rehabilitation after surgery.  For their more general explanation: ACL injury (rupture) is like our basketball game, there is an athlete on the field injured can no longer play, how to do? One way is to continue the game with the remaining 4 players on the court, so is it a sure loss? Not necessarily! If the remaining athletes have good physical strength and comprehensive skills, they can fight against 5 opponents in a short period of time, but as time goes by, the physical strength gradually decreases, and the score may gradually fall behind, or even lose the game. To always win with less, we need to let the remaining 4 athletes to strengthen their training and further improve their physical and technical skills, that is, non-surgical treatment.  The other way, change! That is, surgical treatment, but the athlete we replace on the court will not play basketball (that is, the material for surgical reconstruction of ligaments is not real ligaments, it is their own tendons, treated allograft tendons or artificial ligaments), they have to learn to play basketball through coaching and their own hard practice, if the athlete does not practice hard or coaching is not good, they may lose, post-operative rehabilitation is essential for the surgery Post-operative rehabilitation is crucial to the effect of surgery.  That is why it is important to restore the function of the knee joint through rehabilitation exercises that last 3-4 months or even longer, regardless of surgical or non-surgical treatment. If you don’t have surgery, you will have problems if you don’t have good rehab; if you don’t have good surgery, you won’t be able to regain function if you don’t have good rehab.