ACLs and My Dog Food Legs

I went to a workshop on ACL injuries last Saturday. It was a work-related endeavour but I'll make one thing clear - I do not work in the medical industry. I am far too dizzy, brain dead and squeamish for such things. I can reiterate that point by the fact that I had to divert my eyes or swallow several times when the presenter showed videos of knee caps being drilled and cadaver legs hung from machines. The cadaver leg was particularly macabre as it was so tanned, slim and athletic looking that I thought to myself "even though I'm an organ donor, there's no way they're going to use my leg in sports medicine studies. My poor old leg will probably end up as dog food."

They also showed the actual video of this girl (pictured left) where she tore hers and holy cow, she came down on her left leg, knee pointed in and bam it turned to jelly. OW! I rubbed my knees in sympathy and thanked my past mentors that I wasn't a doctor.

It was fascinating stuff though. For example, did you know that ACLs occur far more readily in girls than boys? And that ACLs occur most readily at and shortly after puberty? They showed videos of young teenagers jumping off things and the boys jumped with legs straight, their center of mass (belly button) right over their ankles, and the girls jumped with knees pointed in, like someone doing the funky chicken. And girls had a leg preference where boys didn't.

What's sad is that 10-15 years after an ACL injury 50% of people get progressive osteoarthritis in their knees. So there are tons of girls out there, as young as 25, with terrible pain. The medical people that were presenting are trying to intervene and stop ACLs in young girls by proper training.

One doctor from Germany was a tad upset with the mindset in America. Apparently a young girl at a University had had four reconstructive ACL surgeries but kept playing varsity soccer and was given a big award at the end of her college career. He was disgusted with the coach, the doctor and her parents. Fair point eh. I did overhear a surgeon tell someone during the break "If it was my daughter, she wouldn't play soccer, basketball or downhill skiing ever again".