ACL Overview Provided by Drs. Brad Bernardini, John Gray, and Jeffrey Murray

Brad Bernardini, M.D., John Gray, M.D., and Jeffrey Murray, D.O., M.S.P.T., provide an educational overview of the ACL, including the ligaments that make it up, how it can be injured, and the different treatment options.

Please see below for the full video transcript.

Dr. Gray: The ACL is one of the main stabilizers of the knee. There's four main ligaments, the medial and lateral collateral ligaments, which are on the outside of the knee, and the cruciate ligaments, which are the anterior and posterior cruciate, that cross in the central portion of the knee.

Dr. Bernardini: Ninety percent of these injuries are what we call non-contact injuries that only involve the athlete. And what we see a lot of times is they'll have a planted foot and there'll be an abnormal twisting motion, and that athlete will then overcome the stress that the ACL can sustain, and the ACL will tear.

Dr. Murray: Quickly after the injury occurs, you'll get a large amount of swelling in the knee joint. Subsequently, with evaluation with a physician, there's hands-on testing that we can perform, and ultimately, you would undergo an MRI to confirm the diagnosis of a torn ACL.

Dr. Gray: An ACL tear can be treated, basically, two different ways. In an older, less active population, we can often treat them conservatively. In a younger population, often the recommendation is going to be to fix that.

Dr. Bernardini: Somewhere between six to nine months, we start to see athletes get back. I will say that, over time, we've learned that the longer we can rehab and get these patients to recover, the better they're going to do.

Dr. Gray: At Virtua Reconstructive Orthopedics, we have all the options available for our patients with the highest technology and minimally invasive techniques. Ninety-five percent of people have a very successful operation, and over seventy-five percent of them get back to the high level of sport that they were playing prior to this injury.

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