Can You Return to Sport After an ACL Injury?

ACL Injuries can be fatal in a young athlete's sporting career

The devastation of an ACL injury

ACL injuries are devastating, not only due to the acute pain and swelling, but the prolonged time away from sports and hobbies, never mind the increased risk of long-term knee health issues.

ACL Injuries are on the rise

Depending on what stats you read, the reported incidence of ACL injury can vary significantly. One dataset estimated that around 20,000 ACL injuries occur in the UK every year, and that these injuries are on the rise.

The issues surrounding returning to play

One of the biggest issues surrounding this injury are athlete's inability to return to their previous level of activity and the high reinjury risk of those that do go on to suffer a reinjury. With the rate of ACLR’s in England increasing twelve-fold in the last two decades, it is more important than ever to optimise the management of ACL injuries in the UK (Abram et al., 2020).

Important ACL studies and their findings

• Inadequate ACL rehabilitation programmes and an absence of robust return to sport
• Testing protocols means that up to 55% of athletes do not to return to their previous level of performance (Gokeler et al., 2022), and it is estimated that up to 37.5% will go on to suffer
• ACL reinjuries upon return to sport (Rodriguez-Merchan and Valentino., 2021). It is also known that ACL injury markedly increases the risk of developing knee osteoarthritis with an estimated prevalence of 36% at ten years post-ACLR (Webster and Hewett., 2022).

The lack of specialist ACL rehab

Unfortunately ACL rehabilitation isn’t given much time on the undergraduate physiotherapy curriculum, and the large majority of ACL rehab is carried out by ‘generalist’ clinicians who are expected to see what is a complex, long-term injury in a short amount of time with limited resources. When we look at an elite sport environment we see a much higher percentage of successful return to sport and a much lower re-injury risk. This would lead us to believe that a lot of the issues around poor rehabilitation and testing are resolvable.

LIFT can return you back to sport

At LIFT physiotherapy we are proud to say that we have an ACL specialist clinician and a full pathway from surgery to return to sport including force plate testing and isokinetic dynamometry the same as what you would have if you were in a professional sports setting. If you or someone you know have experienced an ACL injury then we would love to support you on your rehab journey.'