ACL Tear Greater St. Charles, MO. ACL tears can unexpectedly upset your active routine and daily life. You go from having a blast in a sport or playing with your kids, to suddenly wondering whether you’ll get to play or even go to work again. At Axes Physical Therapy in St. Charles, MO, we have devoted our practice to helping our patients regain their strength and mobility, and getting them back to the activities they love. Our ACL tear rehabilitation specialists work in concert with you as a team and develop tailored treatments plans that have been empirically proven to be effective. If you’ve sustained an ACL tear, or any other injury, in St. Charles, MO, contact us online or locate the most convenient Axes location for you. We dedicate ourselves to getting every patient positive results and getting you back to the things that matter most to you, whether that means burning corners in your local St. Charles, MO flag football league, or picking up your grandchildren without any pain.
The Anterior Cruciate Ligament | St. Charles, MO Physical Therapy
Ligaments are bands found in joints made of durable, pliable fibrous tissue that connect two bones. The ligaments in the knee work to keep your knee stable by affixing your tibia (shinbone) to your femur (thigh bone). The ACL, or anterior cruciate ligament, is in the center of your knee and crosses the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) so they make an “x”. The ACL and PCL work together to stabilize the front and back motion of your knee, and the ACL impedes the tibia from sliding too far forward on the femur and provides rotational stability.
Most ACL tears are partial, but they can be completely torn as well. Depending on the grade of your ACL tear, your ability to bear weight and your motion will be affected. However serious your injury, trust in the St. Charles, MO licensed physical therapists of Axes to help you fully recover.
Causes of an ACL Tear | St. Charles, MO Physical Therapy
There are as many as 250,000 ACL injuries nationwide each year, and it is one of the most common knee injuries and sports injuries. Athletes who play contact sports and/or sports where there is a lot of cutting and changing direction are the most likely to get ACL tears. According to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, 70% of ACL tears occur in non-contact injuries, such as cutting quickly, and the rest are caused by direct blunt force trauma. External and internal factors could both be at play when you sustain an ACL tear:
External Factors
These are when your coordination is obstructed immediately before the injury. Some examples are:
- Landing on uneven footing or landing awkwardly
- Something or someone bumping into you
- A sudden reduction in speed or changing direction
- Spinning with a firmly planted foot
- Sustaining a direct hit to the knee
Internal Factors
These concern the structure and anatomy of the body. Examples include:
- The anatomical differences between men and women
- Flexibility of the hamstring
- Genetic differences
ACL tears don’t just transpire in sports, falls and work-related injuries can harm they ACL as well. The elderly are also at high risk, as our bodies degenerate as we age. Women are 4-6 times more likely to sustain an ACL tear, likely due to anatomical differences.
Symptoms of an ACL Tear | St. Charles, MO Physical Therapy
When you suffer an ACL tear, the pain will likely be in the middle of the knee. An ACL tear does not always cause significant pain except if other constructive damage was done to the knee. Some signs that you might have suffered an ACL tear include:
- Feeling or hearing a pop in your knee
- Having to stop activity
- Your knee becoming inflamed quickly
- Reduction of range of motion
- Instability when putting weight on your knee
If you suspect you’ve sustained an ACL tear, it’s important to see a physician or a licensed physical therapist in St. Charles, MO to verify your injury and start the treatment you need to recover. We offer no-cost, no strings attached injury screenings and have a wide network of excellent physicians in St. Charles, MO that we can connect you with. Your Axes physical or occupational therapist is an essential part of your recovery team, working closely with you and your doctors and medical providers to collaborate on your safe and efficient recovery.
How to Treat an ACL Tear | St. Charles, MO Physical Therapy
It is vital to get prompt, effective, personalized treatment for your ACL tear. If you delay, or your treatment is ineffective, it can result in problems such as obesity or osteoarthritis, which can greatly affect your quality of life.
Immediately after your ACL tear, it’s best to use over-the-counter pain medication and the R.I.C.E. method to mitigate pain and inflammation. In an examination, a doctor will evaluate your range of motion, and likely order an MRI to confirm the ACL tear and judge the completeness and grade of your tear.
Because blood does not flow to ligaments, a complete ACL tear cannot heal by itself. That is why the aid of a licensed professional physical therapist is necessary to get back to the activities you love. The only way to fully repair an ACL tear is through surgery. So, surgery is often necessary for younger people, athletes who need a fully healthy ACL in order to play, patients whose ACL tears were accompanied by other serious damage to their knee, or those whose ACL tear causes their knee to buckle in basic, everyday tasks. In an ACL surgery, a surgeon will remove the injured ACL, take a graft from another one of your or a donors tendons, and use small incisions to attach it to the bones.
Once the new ligament is attached, your journey back to normalcy and the activities you love is still a long way from over. After surgery, you’ll probably need crutches to move around, as your quadriceps muscles will have weakened. Axes Physical Therapy offers both pre- and post-surgical rehabilitation for ACL tears in St. Charles, MO to optimize your recovery and the success of your operation. Our ACL tear physical therapy professionals will lead you through your recovery process with a personalized treatment plan that has been demonstrated to work. Our treatment methods will help to:
- Mitigate pain and swelling
- Provide patient education so you understand your injury and why our methods work
- Gradually and successfully get you back to bearing weight
- Fit you for a brace and teach you how to safely use it
- Perform movement exercises and balance exercises to return range of motion
- Perform strength exercises to increase strength
- Possibly employ electrical stimulation to return strength and flexibility
When you work with the experienced St. Charles, MO area physical therapists of Axes and take an active role in your rehabilitation, you have the best chance of a complete and efficient recovery. Before you know it, we will get you back to tearing up the local flag football league, or just enjoying being able to to climb stairs without feeling any instability in your knee.
How to Prevent an ACL Tear | St. Charles, MO Physical Therapy
Unfortunately, many people sustain a second ACL tear and they can have life-long consequences. As part of our ACL tear physical therapy services in St. Charles, MO, our Certified Athletic Trainers will educate you on how to avoid another ACL tear in the future. We recommend some of the following steps to prevent further injury:
- Strengthen your core
- Having strong hip and leg muscles
- Practice proper form, for instance always landing with your feet directly over your knee
- Stretch consistently
- Perform balance exercises
- Perform warm-up exercises before sports or other physical activities
- Make sure you are using appropriate footwear
Our physical therapists devote themselves not only to retuning you to the activities you love, but doing what we can to make sure that you stay off the sidelines.
Some of the other services we offer in St. Charles, MO are:
- Pain Management
- Rotator Cuff Tear
- Arthritis Treatment
- Sports Injury
- Knee Injuries
- Work Injury Rehabilitation
- Physical Therapist Near Me
- Neck Pain
ACL Tear in St. Charles, MO | Axes Physical Therapy
It is normal to be nervous about your your future after being seriously injured. If you’ve sustained an ACL tear, you probably want to get back to your normal, active lifestyle as quickly as possible. Trust in the knowledgeable professionals of Axes Physical Therapy to work alongside you to create a proven, personalized rehabilitation plan to get you back to the football field, gymnasts’ mat, or just back to your normal, pain-free daily activities. Contact us online or call the location are closest to you.
