ACL Tear Treatment Physical Therapy: What you need to know
ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) tears plague our young athletes. With all of the research out there, we still are unable to give specific reasoning as to why ACL tears are so common, but one thing is for sure: we need to know how to help athletes recover after an ACL tear so that they can return to sport without fear of reinjury and with a decreased risk for reinjury overall (beyond just their current ACL injury).
In this blog, we're going to discuss ACL Tear treatment physiotherapy so that you can learn more about what treatment would look like post-injury as well as options for sports physiotherapy treatment and ACL tear recovery at Cadence Physiotherapy in Scarborough, ON.
What happens in the injured leg during an ACL tear?
The long in the short: The ACL helps prevent your lower leg bone (the shin bone) from moving forward on your upper leg bone (what you would consider your thigh bone) as well as prevents the knee from rotating inward excessively.
Typically, the mechanism of injury is typically non-contact and usually occurs when your foot is planted (think plant and kick in soccer) and you quickly change direction or speed, think pivoting and cutting. You can learn more about the mechanism of injury for an ACL tear here.
Does every ACL tear need physiotherapy treatment/a rehab program?
We would say yes. If you're looking to perform your best, maximize your strength, and decrease your risk for reinjury (which is, unfortunately, super common for ACL injuries), then working with a physiotherapist, whether or not you have ACL surgery/ACL reconstruction is ideal and preferred.
What does an ACL tear treatment program look like?
As an athlete, you need to be treated as such. ACL rehab is not just about simple table exercise and low-threshold movement. We need to get you running, jumping, and doing sport-specific exercises. This is how we will get you back on the field, court, rink, etc. after all.
We always want to make sure that we decrease pain and swelling and monitor for swelling/pain response throughout the program. Our goal is to ensure that we're progressing your ACL rehab exercises in a way that allows you to gain full range of motion, muscle strength, and the ability to tolerate jumping, cutting, and pivoting without experiencing excessive pain or swelling.
The rehab exercise program itself will progress over time but we will work on weight bearing through the injured leg, strengthening the muscles around the knee (on both legs, of course!!), and building up to exercises that prepare you for sport: think running, jumping, cutting, etc.
We want you to be as strong as you can be as well as able to maintain balance and control of your body with movement and to be ready for stressors during your sport, thereby minimizing the risk that you will have a reinjury or injure the other side.
Where to go for ACL injury treatment in Scarborough, ON
At Cadence Physiotherapy, we pride ourselves on being able to provide the best care for athletes in Scarborough, ON and the Toronto area.
If you've had an ACL injury and are looking to get back to your sport, maximize your performance ability, and decrease your risk for reinjury or injury in the future, we'd love to work with you.
Currently, we are taking new patients and you can schedule in here with one of our sports physiotherapists.
If you are interested in learning more about the ACL and ACL rehab in general, here are some of our resources:
ACL tear prevention exercises for young athletes (check out this blog to see some of our favorite ACL tear prevention exercises)