A new study suggests young athletes who need knee ligament surgery do better over the long run when their own tissue is used for the reconstruction procedure, rather than tissue from a donor.
The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) connects the upper and lower leg bones and helps stabilize the knee. It gets the most use in athletes who play a sport such as basketball that involves quick cuts and changes in direction.
Women being more susceptible to knee injuries than men has alwasy been attributed to differences in muscular and skeletal structure. A new Oregon State University study suggests gender differences in the nervous system also may play a role.
The study suggests that men and women transmit nerve impulses differently. In particular, men and women differ in how they transmit the nerve impulses that control muscle force. Men control nerve impulses much like athletes trained for explosive muscle usage, like sprinters. Women control nerve impulses more like athletes trained for endurance, like cross-country runners.
Read the full Wired Playbook article here.
Teenage girls are three times more likely to suffer an ACL injury when playing the same or similar sports as teenage boys, according to research from the national high school sports-related injury study run by Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Male high school athletes have more knee injuries in general, but a higher proportion of females' knee injuries involve ACLs, she said.
There are several theories for the cause, one being that females land differently when jumping.
Read the full jconline.com article here.
A group of surgeons and professional athletes this week will detail a campaign to combat youth sports injuries in the U.S. Called STOP Sports Injuries, the group says it plans to run public-service announcements, research children's sports injuries and make recommendations on injury prevention.
By Steve Horan
To those of us who parent or coach female athletes, there is nothing more inspiring than a group of young women competing in sports with passion and honor and joy. The individual performances, team ideal, and bonding that can occur in girls' and women's sports are something to behold.
On the other hand, there is nothing more ugly than the sudden thud and scream that tell us a serious injury has just occurred. Even short of injury, there is something wrong about countless female athletes living their lives in chronic pain from punishing their bodies in sports.
Michael Sokolove aptly paints this contrast in his new book, Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports. On the bright side, Mr. Sokolove presents an inspiring history of women's sports and the extraordinary expansion of athletic opportunities available to girls and women since the passage of Title IX. On the dark side, he presents disturbing statistics about female injury rates which are many times higher than their male counterparts and reaching epidemic proportions. Here he is not talking about a few more bumps and bruises, but an epidemic of serious injuries (including ACL tears and concussions) which are not only ending athletic careers, but potentially affecting the athlete for the rest of her life.
Knee injuries are always a concern in sports. Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in particular are increasing in incidence, particularly among female athletes. (If past is prologue, the large majority of the 250,000 ACL tears expected to occur this year will happen to females age 15-25.)
An ACL injury can be devastating to any athlete, as it typically requires surgery and many months of painful rehab to recover. The good news is the emergence of effective programs aimed at reducing the risk of ACL injuries. We can help our athletes (male and female) reduce their risk of ACL injuries by following these prevention guidelines.
