Anterior Cruciate Ligament

What is the Anterior Cruciate Ligament

Anterior cruciate ligament is a common term you’ll hear watching sport.  Particularly contact sport or those involving twisting actions.  The cruciate ligaments are structures within the knee which give stability to the knee.  More importantly it provides feedback to the brain and means the muscles which act around the knee to react and protect the knee.

How does ACL get hurt?

What happens is with a twisting injury the ligaments get stretched or tear completely. This then meand the  feedback isn’t getting to the brain.  The knee can then feel like collapsing.  It well become very painful initially. However, the longer term pain and problem is giving way.  When  it comes to talk about surgery for anterior cruciate ligaments the decision to have surgery or not is more difficult than one might think.  We have a situation where it can be possible to increase the input from other structures which could inform the brain about joint position sense and that can be sufficient tocompensate for the lack of an ACL

This does depend on many different factors.  To fully rehab the knee and allow the person to do everything they wanted to do before both safely and efficiently is key.  If a person has to sports for hobbies or a physical job then this may be more difficult.  Equally those that cannot gain good balance reactions may not be able to reach their goals.  Given this it’s certainly worth giving physio a go prior to surgery and give it 6 to 7 weeks of hard work to allow us to achieve full potential without the need for surgery.

If the knee require surgery is required to regain stability then once again rehabilitation is absolutely essential.  Without good rehab after surgery the chances of reinjuring the knee are very high so either way whether you got questions concerns or wonder book an appointment check the link to book an appointment give us a call or get in touch Hair by on a contact page and let us know what you think

What happens next?

You will be in plaster for a while, probably around 6 weeks.  After that comes off give Pure Physio Albany a call (09 4481277) or book online here.  You will need a gradual progression of stretches, strengthening, balance and functional rehabilitation.  The good news is with quality physio a full recovery is very likely.