Anterior Cruciate Ligament Or Ligament Injury Of The Knee

Hello,

My name is Dr. Kunal Makhija. I'm a practicing orthopedic and joint replacement surgeon, specializing in knee surgeries. Today we will talk about the very common ailment, the anterior cruciate ligament injury or ligament injury of the knee as the common people know. What happens exactly where is the ligament situated? What is the function of the ligament and what will happen if it is torn partially or it is torn fully and what are the treatment options available with us? That we will discuss in today's talk.

First of all, we have to understand that knee is made up of two bones the thigh bone and the leg bone, the femur and the tibia, these two bones are attached with each other with the help of cord-like structures known as ligament. The four most common ligament injuries are either lateral ligament, the medial ligament, the Posterior ligament or the most common which is anterior cruciate ligament or ACL.

Usually, in sports injuries like football, badminton or bike injuries or when you miss a step and fall down, the ligament which is injured is the anterior cruciate ligament because of the rotary motion of the upper bone on the lower bone, whenever this is torn, the ligament. The function of this ligament is mainly balancing the knee so after the ligament is torn, if it is torn partially the balance won't be hampered but if it is torn fully the balance of the knee would be hampered, in which case you won't be able to run fast, you won't be able to climb down staircase quickly, you won't be able to jump, you won't be able to do hops or in case you won't be able to do langri.

So these are the things which will determine whether you have an anterior cruciate ligament injury or not so if it is partially torn, the treatment protocol is painkillers, icing and physiotherapy at least for four to six weeks and avoiding sports for next three to six months and if it is fully torn, the ligament and you are not able to run fast, you miss a step or there is feeling of giving away at the knee, at that time you need to consult an orthopedic surgeon and mostly the treatment in these cases is an arthroscopic ligament surgery in which we take the ligament from the body itself and arthroscopically by the means of small cameras we fix the ligament over here and it is as good as the original one.

It is a lifetime procedure you need not go revision surgery and you can get back to sports as soon as three to six months but we have to take care that when the ligament injury has happened we consult a doctor as soon as possible because if it is a full tear and we ignore it, it will further deteriorate the knee condition and may cause arthritis, may cause meniscus tear and again, and again fall may lead to a major fall and you might end up having a fracture. So any ligament injury should be seen by an orthopedic surgeon as soon as possible.

Thank you