Orthopedic Surgery Disease：Knee Ligament Damage

• Ligament is damaged by external force to Knee joint.
• Get injured by sport activity, traffic accident or fall-off.
• High diagnosis rate for image inspection by MRI.
• Conservation therapy or surgical operation is selected depend upon which ligament is injured.

Ligament is damaged by external force to Knee joint.

As knee joint stabilizing ligament, there are medial collateral ligament at inside, fibular collateral ligament at outside, anterior cruciate ligament running from front side of knee joint shinbone to thighbone side, and posterior cruciate ligament running from backside of shinbone to thighbone side. Damage of knee ligament means the disease that ligaments are damaged by exterior force to knee joint, thus symptoms has appeared. As the external force is getting severer, there might be a case where multiple ligaments are damaged, not the single ligament damage.

Get injured by sport activity, traffic accident or fall-off.

There are many cases which person may get injured by not only sports, like rugby or Judo, which has lots of opportunity facing severe physical contacts, but also the sports, like basketball or volleyball, which sudden physical position change or landing movement from jump. Person may get injured from the traffic accident of bicycle or motor bike or fall down to ground. Depend on external force application direction, several kinds of ligament are damaged.Period just after the injury, aching pain, enlargement or tenderness may occur. When acute stage has passed, enlargement is reduced but giving way or unstable feeling on knee may come up.

High diagnosis rate for image inspection by MRI.

I can be inferred which ligament is damaged by doctor’s interview of past medical history and local part examination. It can be diagnosed from Stress photo inspection which applies stress to knee joint then take X-ray examination, but image inspection by MRI has a higher diagnosis rate. So that MRI is used at many medical facilities.

Conservation therapy or surgical operation is selected depend upon which ligament is injured.

Treatment method are conservation treatment and surgical treatment.

Treatment method are conservation treatment and surgical treatment.

Medial collateral ligament and posterior cruciate ligament are expected as less troublesome for daily life or sports activity by the treatment of knee orthosis or cast immobilization. Thus, conservation therapy is conducted mainly.

Surgical Treatment

For anterior cruciate ligament, surgical operation is considered as adequate whether or not person is performing high level sports activities or based on the social background such as age or occupation. In surgical treatment, ligament reconstruction, surgical operation using own ligament with arthroscope is commonly conducting. For posterior cruciate ligament, conservation treatment may rarely cause trouble in daily life or sports activities, but when symptom remains, ligament re-construction is evaluated.

Also, in case if multiple ligaments are damaged, conservative surgical treatment for fresh injury is came up for debate. In case when few hours has passed from the injury and unstableness still remains, surgical treatment is selected.Postoperative rehabilitation varies by facilities, but knee mobility area recovers up in 3 to 6 months rehabilitation, and when muscle strength increases, person can reintegrate into sports activities.

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