Sports medicine, arthroscopy, rehabilitation, therapy & technology : SMARTT最新文献

The aim of this review was to present an over view of degenerative rotator cuff tears and a suggested management protocol based upon current evidence. Degenerative rotator cuff tears are common and are a major cause of pain and shoulder dysfunction. The management of these tears is controversial, as to whether they should be managed non-operatively or operatively. In addition when operative intervention is undertaken, there is question as to what technique of repair should be used. This review describes the epidemiology and natural history of degenerative rotator cuff tears. The management options, and the evidence to support these, are reviewed. We also present our preferred management protocol and method, if applicable, for surgical fixation of degenerative rotator cuff tears.

The present study is a report of retrospective case series of stress fracture of the olecranon. Six patients presented posterior elbow pain in throwing in baseball and softball, but fracture was not diagnosed in radiographs. We detected stress fracture of the olecranon using computed tomographic (CT) scan and treated the patient with internal fixation with a headless cannulated double threaded screw through a small skin incision. All patients returned to competitive level without elbow complaints after the operation.When throwing athletes present with unusual posterior elbow pain and no significant findings on radiographs, a CT scan examination should be performed. We recommend surgical treatment of internal fixation with a screw through a small skin incision, as a good option for stress fracture of the olecranon in order to allow early return to sports activity in competitive athletes.

The clavicle connects the shoulder girdle to the axial skeleton, providing support and mobility for optimal upper extremity function. Fractures of the clavicle account for up to 4% of all fractures and comprise up to 44% of all injuries to the shoulder girdle. We present a 63-year-old female patient who suffered what appeared to be a minimally displaced Type V lateral clavicle fracture after a fall as evidenced by an anteroposterior shoulder radiograph. However, an axillary projection demonstrated the proximal segment to be posteriorly displaced and buttonholed through the trapezius musculature with tenting of the skin. The patient underwent an open reduction and Kirschner wire fixation of the fracture with complete healing, subsequent removal of the hardware and return to her previous level of function six months following surgery. After an extensive literature search, we believe this is the first case report documenting a variant of a Type V lateral clavicle fracture, specifically with significant posterior displacement of the proximal segment, mimicking a Type IV AC separation. This fracture pattern is unstable and represents a double disruption of the superior shoulder suspensory complex. Surgical management was successful in returning our patient back to her previous activity of daily living.

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Purpose: The purpose of this present study was to examine contralateral ACL injury cases after ACL reconstruction, to determine the characteristics of such injuries.

Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of 24 patients with contralateral ACL injury after ACL reconstruction. The control group consisted of 200 cases with unilateral ACL injury. The following were examined in the contralateral group: timing of the contralateral ACL injury, and the situations of the initial and contralateral ACL injuries. The following items were compared between the contralateral and control groups: age at the time of initial injury, level of competitive sports using Tegner activity scores, knee anterior laxity (KT-1000), and the ratio (%) of affected to unaffected legs in the strengths of the knee extensor and flexor muscles 6 months after surgery.

Results: Examination of injury situations showed that approximately 70% of the contralateral group was injured in situations similar to those at their initial injuries. There were no significant differences between the two groups in age at the time of initial injury , Tegner activity scores, knee anterior laxity, and the strengths of the knee extensor, flexor muscles and H/Q ratio 6 months after reconstruction. But, the age at the time of initial injury trended to be low in contralateral group.

Conclusions: Knee anterior laxity and muscle weakness of the reconstructed legs six months following surgery were not individually related to contralateral ACL injury occurring approximately two years after surgery.

Overuse injuries are generally defined as a repetitive micro-trauma to tissue. Many researchers have associated particular biomechanical parameters as an indicator of such injuries. However, while these parameters have been reported in single studies, in many instances, it has been difficult to verify these parameters as causative to the injury. We have investigated overuse injuries, such as patella-femoral pain syndrome, using a dynamical systems approach. Using such methods, the importance of the structure of coordinative variability (i.e. the variability of the interaction between segments or joints) becomes apparent. We view coordinative variability as functionally important to the movement and different from end-point or goal variability. Using concepts derived from the work of Bernstein, we conducted studies using a continuous relative phase and/or modified vector coding approaches to investigate the coordinative variability of overuse injuries. Consistently, we have found that the higher variability state of a coordinative structure is the healthy state while the lower variability state is the unhealthy or pathological state. It is clear that very high coordinative variability could also result in injury and that there must be a window of 'higher variability' in which non-injured athletes function. While this finding that coordinative variability is functional has been shown in several studies, it is still not clear if reduced variability contributes to or results from the injury. Studies are currently underway to determine the potential reasons for the reduced variability in injured athletes. Nevertheless, our laboratory believes that this understanding of how joints interact can be important in understanding overuse injuries.

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Background: Achieving precise implant alignment is crucial for producing good outcomes after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). We introduce a simple method for confirming the accuracy of tibial osteotomy during TKA.

Findings: Two metallic markers were placed on the skin 20 cm apart, one on the tibial tuberosity and other on the tibial crest, points that are easily identified and palpated intraoperatively. Anteroposterior radiographs of the legs were obtained. We defined the line along the markers as the tuberosity line. The osteotomy line is perpendicular to the anatomical axis of the tibia. We then calculated the angle between these two lines and designated it the osteotomy angle. We set the osteotomy angle of the protractor, and cut the bone parallel to the osteotomy line of the protractor. Postoperatively, we analyzed the varus angle of the tibial osteotomy in 35 TKAs using the protractor. The average of the varus angle of the tibial osteotomy was 89.4° ± 1.6° (95% confidence interval of -1.0976, 0.0119). There was no significant difference from the target angle of 90° (p = 0.055). The varus angles of 90° and 90° ± 2° for the tibial osteotomy were 42.9% and 82.9%, respectively.

Conclusions: We determined the accuracy of the tibial osteotomy in the coronal plane using the protractor to be satisfactory.

A 49 year-old male visited a nearby clinic five years back with a complaint of pain in the right knee during exercise. Plain radiographs revealed absence of any anomalies. He began to feel a lumpy mass in his right knee two years back. The pain worsened, on imaging, an anomaly was identified in the infrapatellar fat pad of his right knee, and he was subsequently referred to our department where he was hospitalized. On examination, a mass extending on either side of the patellar tendon was identified along with rigid tenderness in that area. The knee's range of motion was 0degrees-130degrees, and knee flexion was accompanied by pain. The results of blood tests were normal. A plain radiograph of the knee revealed multiple ossifying tumors at a site consistent with the infrapatellar fat pad. T1-weighted MRI exhibited low-signal intensity, while T2-weighted MRI exhibited a mosaic-shaped tumor. We performed arthroscopic surgery to excise the tumor. The patient resumed work shortly after surgery and did not experience any pain during the two year postoperative observation period. The joint's range of motion improved to the extent that it was comparable with that of the left knee. No recurrence was observed on radiographic examination. In past studies, resection of similar tumors has been performed with an arthrotomy; however, we performed arthroscopic resection on our patient, who demonstrated a quick improvement in symptoms and range of motion after surgery. We believe that arthroscopic surgery is a feasible option to consider while treating such cases.

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Introduction: Cricket is the most popular sport in India, and is gaining in importance in all south-east Asian countries. The purpose of this study was to prospectively investigate the incidence, nature, and site of acute upper limb injuries sustained by professional cricketers of north India over a period of one year.

Material & methods: 95 cricket players (mean age 18.9 years) were prospectively evaluated for nature and incidence of upper limb injuries from 1st November 2008 to 31st October 2009. For the purpose of comparison the calculated injury incidence included injuries sustained during match as well as practice. Injuries were also grouped according to the type of cricket activities such as batting or fielding.

Results: Out of 95 players evaluated, 24 were bowlers, 19 were batsmen, 8 were wicket keepers and the other 44 cricketers declared themselves as all rounders. There were a total of 16 upper limb injuries in 16 (16.8%) players. The majority of injuries (10/16) occurred while fielding. Out of 16 injuries, 11 were seen in hand, 3 were observed in elbow, while 2 patients suffered from shoulder problem. Twelve were acute injuries while 4 were classified as repetitive stress injuries (RSI).

Conclusion: The incidence of upper limb injuries in cricketers at the professional and semi-professional level is significant, causing them to miss matches or practice for a significant number of days. This is the first study of Indian cricketers which documents the high incidence of upper limb injuries. The study highlights the importance of injury surveillance for Indian cricket. It is a concern which needs to be addressed by the players, coaches, teachers, administrators and medical personnel involved with cricket.

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Background: Loss of knee extension and a deficit in quadriceps strength are frequently found following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the addition of Eletromyographic Biofeedback (EMG BFB) therapy for the vastus medialis muscle to the in the early phase of the standard rehabilitation programme could improve the range of knee extension and strength after ACL reconstruction more than a standard rehabilitation programme. The correlation between EMG measurement and passive knee extension was also investigated.

Method: Sixteen patients, all of whom underwent endoscopic ACL reconstruction using patellar tendon autograft, were randomly assigned to two groups:• Control group (8 patients): standard rehabilitation protocol; with full weight-bearing postoperative, knee brace (0° extension, 90° flexion), electrical stimulation, aquatics and proprioceptive training.• The EMG BFB group (8 patients): EMG BFB was added to the standard rehabilitation protocol within the first postoperative week and during each session for the next 6 weeks.Each patent attended a total of 16 outpatient physiotherapy sessions following surgery. High-Heel-Distance (HHD) Test, range of motion (ROM) and integrated EMG (iEMG) for vastus medialis were measured preoperatively, and at the 1, 2, 4 and 6-week follow ups. Additionally, knee function, swelling and pain were evaluated using standardized scoring scales.

Results: At 6 weeks, passive knee extension (p < 0.002) and the HHD Test were significantly (p < 0.01) better in the EMG BFB group compared to controls. Integrated EMG (vastus medialis) of the EMG BFB group also showed a significant increase after 2 (p < 0.01) and 6 (p < 0.01) weeks. At the 6-week follow up, no significant (p > 0.01) differences were found between the two groups for the assessment of knee function, swelling and pain.

Conclusion: The results indicate that EMG BFB therapy, in the early phase of rehabilitation after ACL reconstruction, is useful in enhancing knee extension. Improved innervation of the vastus medialis can play a key role in the development of postoperative knee extension. EMG BFB therapy is a simple, inexpensive and valuable adjunct to conventional therapeutic modalities.

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Background: The purpose of this study was to assess the concurrent validity of alternative measures of frontal plane knee alignment, namely the radiographic anatomic axis and two clinical measures in patients complaining of knee malalignment as compared with the mechanical axis on full-length radiograph of lower limbs.

Methods: The knee-alignment angle was measured in 100 knees of 50 subjects with the chief complaint of frontal knee malalignment according to the following methods: lower-limb mechanical axis on radiograph, lower-limb anatomic axis on radiograph, distance between medial femoral condyles or medial malleoli using a calliper and lower-limb alignment using a goniometer. Data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and simple linear regression.

Results: The anatomic axis best correlated with the mechanical axis (r = 0.93, P<0.001), followed closely by the intercondylar/intermalleolar distance measured by calliper (r = 0.89, P<0.001). Significant correlation was also found between the mechanical-axis angle and the lower limb axis measured by goniometer (r = 0.67, P<0.001).

Conclusions: The anatomic axis on radiograph, the calliper method and to a lesser extent the goniometer measurement appear to be valid alternatives to the mechanical axis on full-leg radiograph for determining frontal plane knee alignment. These alternative measures have the potential to provide useful information regarding knee alignment and may increase the assessment of this parameter by clinicians and researchers.