ACL injury? What is it ? How to manage? Will physiotherapy help?
An ACL injury is one of the most disabling injuries in the life of a sports person due to the relatively long recovery time. ACL injuries for normal people are also on the higher side these days due to the increasingly sedentary lifestyle, overweight and lack of exercises.
Did your MRI report an ACL injury? Think before you make a decision for reconstruction surgery, give physiotherapy conservative management a try. In my personal clinical experience often physiotherapy conservative program has a fairly good chance of rehabilitating and returning back to a sporting activity. We have successfully helped numerous elite sportsperson return to their sporting career with good physiotherapy management. The amount of recovery, of course, depends upon the functional limitations at the time of injury, this can be assessed by a sports physiotherapists.
Typical physiotherapy rehabilitation program starts with basic pain management along with the range of motion exercises to improve your knee range or how much you can bend your knee without causing pain.
The rehabilitation program will slowly and consistently increase its complexity and intensity including more functionally demanding activities like squats and jumps. In the final phase of rehabilitation, there will be highly demanding exercises like running and twisting activities especially for a sportsperson to makes sure that they will be able to return back to their normal training routine.
Physiotherapy rehabilitation duration may range from 4 weeks to 6 months depending upon the severity of the injury. Sports physiotherapists at The Painfree Physio, Trivandrum initially will perform a physiotherapy assessment determining whether physiotherapy is the right kind of treatment for you.
It’s highly recommended that you visit a sports physiotherapists or a sports medicine specialist if you suspect of any persistent knee pain.
A list of home-based management is described below, you may perform these only for minor knee injuries if the pain persists more than a week or does not reduce kindly make a visit to a professional.
Sports physio for Kerala Ranji trophy Cricket team, Chief physiotherapist, The Painfree Physio & Sports Rehab, Former Indian Football Team, MS Sports & Exercise (England), BPT