10/10/2024
Kolejne ciekawe badania wskazujące że każdy plan rehabilitacji po ACLR musi być zindywidualizowany i trudno określić jak długo może trwać powrót do aktywności fizycznej / sportu ! I trzeba być nastawionym na długofalowy proces 😎
Hot off the press 🔥
"Tale of quadriceps and hamstring muscle strength after ACL reconstruction: a systematic review with longitudinal and multivariate meta-analysis"
📘Girdwood et al. (2024) investigated how knee extensor (quadriceps) and flexor (hamstring) muscle strength changes over time following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). They synthesized data from 232 studies involving 34,220 participants and employed longitudinal and multivariate meta-analysis. (https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/10/10/bjsports-2023-107977)
🔑 The key findings are summarized below :
🦵 Knee extensor strength is significantly reduced post-ACLR, remaining 10% weaker compared to the uninjured limb and 20% weaker than uninjured controls at one year after surgery, with little improvement beyond this timeframe, even up to five years post-surgery.
🦵 Knee flexor strength shows smaller deficits (5–7%) at one year, with recovery to near-normal levels by five years post-surgery.
🦵 Comparisons between limbs within the same person tend to underestimate the strength deficits when compared to uninjured individuals, raising concerns about the reliability of within-person comparisons.
🦵 The study highlights that many patients do not meet the clinical benchmark of achieving 90% quadriceps strength in the reconstructed limb relative to the uninjured limb by one year post-ACLR, which has implications for return to sport, reinjury risk, and long-term knee health.
🦵 Graft type influences strength recovery, with extensor grafts associated with lower quadriceps strength and flexor grafts linked to greater hamstring strength deficits.
💡 The authors conclude that better interventions are needed to address persistent muscle weakness after ACLR, as most rehabilitation programs fail to restore full muscle strength. The paper calls for individualized, long-term rehabilitation strategies to improve outcomes.