Best ACL Treatment Dubai

Tear of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament:

Symptoms:

Swelling: Your Knee will feel very tight, and will look visibly larger than your uninjured Knee. When both the Knees are put side by side, you will be able to tell if the injured Knee is swollen. Many people describe it as "looking like a grapefruit " - large and puffy. This type of swelling is called an effusion, as it is contained within the joint.

Pain: Pain is very common at the initial stage. It is usually described as sharp initially, and then may become throbbing or aching when your Knee swells up. Trying to straighten or bend the Knee often increases pain.

Feeling or hearing a pop: The pop could be either the ACL Tear or femur and tibia rubbing against each other. Most of the patients will be able to confirm hearing the pop, but some patients may not hear due to anxiety.

Giving way feeling: The Anterior Cruciate Ligament is a major stabilizer of the Knee. It helps the joint communicate with the muscles to keep the Knee stable. If it is disrupted, one may have episodes where the Knee feels like it gives out, or buckles. This is especially true when one walks on it, or tries to turn on the injured leg. This is one of the most common symptoms of a torn ACL.

Sign:

Lachman's Test:

Anterior Drawer Test:

Loss of Range of Motion:

Another one of the symptoms of a torn ACL is decreased range of motion. Most commonly you will have trouble bending it, often unable to bend to 90 degrees. It may also be difficult to completely straighten it out.

Loss of Strength:

Symptoms of a torn ACL also include quadriceps weakness. Due to swelling and injury to the Knee, the quadriceps muscles will be inhibited by the body in order to try to protect the injury. This means that you will have trouble lifting your leg, or straightening it out, both because of pain, and a feeling of weakness.

Investigation:

Immediate steps in treatment of ACL injury:

Irrespective of the fact that surgery is being contemplated or not, the first steps in treatment of an ACL injury are to decrease the swelling via rest, ice compression, elevation (RICE) and anti-inflammatory medicines (ibuprofen, diclofenac, etc.)

Regain full range of motion of the Knee Joint (ability to bend and straighten the Knee all the way). Strengthening the muscle groups (hamstrings and quadriceps muscles) around the knee.

If there are no episodes of buckling or instability, then you may choose not to have surgery. The muscles around the joint can help in giving the knee some stability for activities of daily living. However, this is not usually recommended.

If you plan on being active and participate in sports or if you have ongoing instability episodes then having the ACL reconstructed is an absolute necessity. The ACL reconstruction is an outpatient arthroscopic procedure that involves removing the torn ligament and replacing it with a new ligament (called a “graft”), from your own tissue. (semitendinosus, gracilis). Go for state-of-the-art ACL treatment to get the best results.

Arthroscopic ACL Reconstruction:

Do I Need Surgery?

Treatment decisions for ACL tears are always individualized - tailored to each individual. The decision whether to offer ACL Reconstruction Surgery is based on the person's age, activity level, how unstable the Knee is, and whether other structures in the Knee have been injured.

It is important to keep in mind that surgery to reconstruct a torn ACL is not an emergency for most people. Many people with a torn ACL do not need surgery at all. Even though the chances for complete success from surgery are now excellent, surgery is not for everyone. This is because not everyone needs the ligament repaired to return to his or her pre-injury level of function. It is important to distinguish whether the work, recreational, and athletic activities of the person is light, moderate, or strenuous. Another important issue that needs to be understood by the individual considering ACL Reconstruction Surgery is that it requires many weeks and months of hard work in rehabilitation following the reconstruction. This needs commitment and time.

Surgery:

The most common autograft options are bone-patellar-bone tendon and hamstrings. ACL Reconstruction Surgery is typically done as an outpatient procedure. Depending on graft choice, open incisions may be necessary to harvest the tissue that is to be used as the new ACL. Knee Arthroscopy is then performed to inspect the Knee, treat additional injuries (meniscus tears or cartilage damage), and to prepare the Knee for the new ACL.

Once the graft tissue has been prepared and the torn ACL tissue has been removed, the surgeon is ready to place the ligament within the Knee. Small tunnels (7-10 mm) are drilled in the tibia and femur to allow the ligament to be pulled up into the Knee.

Accurate placement of these tunnels is critical to successful ACL Reconstruction Surgery. After the ACL graft is in position, fixation devices (screws, washers, buttons, etc.) get used to keep it there until it can heal into its place.

Surgical steps:

1. The orthopaedic surgeon inspects the Knee and removes the remains of the old ACL using an arthroscopic shaver.
2. The graft which gets used for reconstruction, is harvested and prepared for the replacement. Usually the patellar tendon or the Semitendinosus and Gracilis tendon autografts are used in athletes.
3. After harvesting the tissue, a hole is drilled from the front of the tibia diagonally into the Knee and ends up where the ACL attaches to the top of the shin. Next, the orthopaedic surgeon drills a hole in the femur at the anatomical foot-print on the lateral femoral condyle.
4. The harvested replacement graft pulled into place through the holes which were just drilled and locked after flipping the Endo-CL Button.
5. The new ligament is then held into place by two bio-absorbable screws or metallic screws.

In this procedure, rather than using the patellar tendon, the surgeon uses the patient's own hamstring tendon, either the Semitendinosus and Gracilis tendons from the same leg.

There are several variations of this technique. Newer hamstring fixation techniques have been developed to match and even exceed the initial pullout strength of the patella bone tendon bone procedure. Special screws with threads designed not to cut the hamstring tendons are able to fix the tendon within the bone tunnel, as described with the patella bone tendon bone technique. Feel free to contact us if you are looking for the best ACL treatment Dubai.