February 26th, 2024 By: Dr. Jeff Conrad
Today, Dr. Jeff Conrad came to our Sports Medicine class to discuss the knee, more specifically the ACL. Within the knee, there are four main ligaments, the Lateral Collateral Ligament, the Medial Collateral Ligament, the Anterior Cruciate Ligament, and the Posterior Cruciate Ligament. Each of these ligaments is crucial to the complete function of the knee. Dr. Conrad gave us some background on the ACL and some very interesting statistics. One is that females are 3-8x more likely to tear their ACLs. Also, there is a 2.5x increased risk of an ACL injury if a primary relative has had a torn ACL. There have been multiple studies on ways to prevent ACL injuries, Dr. Conrad discussed one that theorized that ACL tears could be minimized to 25% if athletes went through specific knee training.
Dr. Conrad walked my class through multiple different surgeries that he has performed, specifically the ACL reconstruction. I thought it was very interesting how the surgeons can completely repair the ACL with multiple different materials. It was also really amazing to see some real-time video and photos of a real ACL. An ACL tear happens when an athlete has a quick twisting, jumping, landing, or cutting motion. Most of the time, the ACL tear is not the only injury the athlete will experience.
Comments