ACL Rehabilitation

One of the most common knee injury that an individual can suffer through especially athletes is an ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT injury. It is one of the four major ligaments that stabilizes the knee joint. It controls the rotation of the knee that occurs during pivoting / cutting activities or one those involve sudden change in direction. This stabilization occurs by it giving a passive retrain by its attachment to the bones (Tibia and femur) and by the proprioceptive receptors which prevent excessive motion.

Mechanism of injury

  • It is a non contact injury generally occurs when the ligament is subjected to an amount of stress it cannot withstand e.g. while playing a sport when u plant your feet on the ground to change the direction.
  • It is also seen in road traffic accident cases (two wheelers) when the rider places the feet suddenly on the ground when the breaks are applied.
  • Even though not common it also occur in contact sport when an athlete is hit from the side at the knee with the foot planted on the ground. These injuries often involve more than one ligament.

DEGREE OF TEAR

The fibers of the ACL ligament can be partially torn of completely torn depending on the amount of stress it’s subjected to.

Diagnosis:

  • Buckling of the knee is the most common clinical sign. The affected individual feels as though the knee is giving away.
  • Lachmen’s and anterior Drawer test is performed bilaterally and both knees are then compared for anterior translational of tibia over femur.
  • Pivot shift test is also performed to assess the rotational stability which recreates the feeling of buckling.

ACL RESONSTRUCTION SURGERY

If you are an athlete and want to return to sport then ACL reconstruction surgery is the best option .Even though it can be treated conservatively with Physiotherapy there are risk of further damaging the other ligaments and cartilage .Also returning to sport without the reconstructive surgery may lead to decrease in the efficiency of the athletic skills.

Post Reconstruction Rehab at OSTEOREHAB CLINIC

Rehab process / Physiotherapy post reconstruction surgery starts from day one.

In the last i.e. 4th and 5th Phase of Rehab we train the individual in a way that they can perform high impact activities or athletes, so that they can return to sports .

These activities include:

  • Agility drills:
    • forward and backward skipping
    • side shuffle
    • skater’s quick stepping
      • skater’s-quick-stepping
    • carioca
      • skater’s-quick-stepping
    • cross overs
    • backward jog, forward jog
  • Landing mechanics - progressing from higher amplitude double leg to single leg landing drills.
    • Start uni-planar and gradually progress to multi-planar
  • Unanticipated movement control drills:
    • including cutting and pivoting
  • Agility ladder drills
    • skater’s-quick-stepping
  • Strength and control drills related to sport specific movements.
  • Sport/work specific balance and proprioceptive drills
  • Hip strengthening
    • To maximize the neuromuscular control so as to prevent hip adduction at landing and stance.
  • Core strength and stabilization:
    • Especially orientated at preventing frontal plane trunk lean during landing and single leg stance
  • Stretching for patient specific muscle imbalances

Why Osteorehab For Post ACL Reconstruction Rehab ?

We at OsteoRehab use variety of different Physiotherapeutic along with Chiropractic manipulative techniques to bring the patients to their highest functional level.

The various techniques that our used to improve incude:

  • PNF – use of Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation techniques By Dr. Rohit Gupta is done to train sports player so that the body adapts to functional movements quickly.
  • Pilates: Core training one of the most important treatment part in all kind of Rehab is done by Dr. Sanyukta Jain on Pilates Reformer.
  • Chiropractic: These manipulations of the spine along with other joints maintains the overall health and gives a holistic approach toward treating a patient.