Information about project titled 'Mechanisms for non-contact ACL injuries in sports - A systematic review'
Mechanisms for non-contact ACL injuries in sports - A systematic review
| Details about the project - category | Details about the project - value |
|---|---|
| Project status: | Published |
| Project manager: | Roald Bahr |
| Coworker(s): | Lars Engebretsen |
Description
The ACL is very important for the stability of the knee joint. When this ligament is torn, even normal gait may become a challenge. Sport athletes often put their knees through extreme loads, and a torn ACL generally makes it impossible to continue sporting without surgery to replace the ligament. Surgery, however, does not solve all problems, since long-term effects like cartilage wear normally appears after some years. A torn ACL then represents a loose-loose situation, in that, without operation its impossible to continue sporting, and with operation long-term damage to the knee is developed. The best thing to do is therefore to prevent such injuries from happening.
If one aims at prevention of injuries, one has to find out why and how they happen. Such injury mechanisms are described only to a limited extent in the literature. Existing literature includes studies with animals, cadavers and living humans. The biomechanical properties of the ligament are studied, e.g. its mechanical structure and what load it can resist before rupture. Further, some studies have detected certain sporting situations that have a higher potential of injuring the ACL. However, an understanding of the interplay between some sport movement and the synchroneous local knee mechanics is scarce. To get a thorough overview of the existing knowledge on non-contact ACL injury mechanisms, a systematic review of the literature will be undertaken.