Larry Hand
Individuals who undergo preoperative rehabilitation before unilateral anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR), as well as postoperative rehabilitation, may experience better outcomes than individuals who have usual care, according to an articlepublished online October 28 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Hege Grindem, PhD, from the Norwegian Research Center for Active Rehabilitation (NAR), Oslo, Norway, and colleagues compared patient-reported knee function outcomes for 84 patients who underwent preoperative and postoperative rehabilitation at the sports medicine clinic with outcomes for 2690 patients who underwent usual care and who were included in the Norwegian National Knee Ligament Registry.
The researchers had treated the rehabilitation patients in the Norwegian portion of the Delaware-Oslo ACL Cohort Study,conducted by NAR and the University of Delaware, Newark. These patients underwent ACLR between 2007 and 2012. Usual-care patients underwent ACLR between 2006 and 2010. Patients ranged from 16 to 40 years old.
The researchers measured outcomes with the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS), which consists of 42 questions in five subscales: pain, other symptoms, function in daily living, function in sport and recreation, and knee-related quality of life.
