There are 2 ligaments known at the Anterior Cruciate Ligament and Posterior Cruciate Ligament in the knee which stabilises your knee joint.  These are strong bands of tissue that connect your thigh bone (femur) to your shin bone (tibia) below.  An ACL injury commonly occurs during sports that involve sudden stops or changes in direction or where there is jumping and hard impact landing such as soccer, basketball, football and skiing.

Signs and Symptoms

• You may hear or feel a ‘pop’ in the knee
• Your knee may swell with a loss of range of motion
• Your knee feels unstable (like giving way) during weight bearing
• Your knee becomes too painful to bear weight

Prevention of Knee Ligament Injury

Proper training and exercise can help reduce the risk of ACL injury.  Your physiotherapist or fitness trainer can help guide and teach you

• exercises to strengthen leg muscles (particularly hamstring exercises)
• exercises to strengthen the core, including the hips, pelvis and lower abdomen
• proper techniques when jumping or landing from jumps
• techniques when performing pivoting and turing movements

Treatment of ACL injury

Treatment of ACL injury depends on the extent of the ligament damage and joint stability.  It may consist of

• Rest and rehabilitation exercises to help you regain strength and stability of the knee joint
• Surgery to repair or replace the torn ligament followed by rehabilitation exercises

Click to watch IMSports video on ACL surgery

Post-Operative Care

• Your doctor or physiotherapist will advise you on how to control swelling and pain after surgery. Try to keep your leg elevated, apply ice pack and rest the knee as much as possible.
• You will need to follow your doctor or physiotherapist Rehabilitation Program to help you strengthen the muscles around your knee and improve joint flexibility.
• You can also perform exercises at home under your doctor or physiotherapist supervision

Successful ACL reconstruction together with a structured Rehabilitation Program can usually restore stability and function to your knee. Recovery generally takes about 6-9 months and it may take 9-12 months before athletes can return to their competitive sports.

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