Surgery for ACL

Introduction

The Anterior cruciate ligament is referred to generally as the ACL. It is a ligament of the knee and is one of the four major ligaments that make up the knee. It starts from deep within the botch of the distal femur bone and its fibers spread out along the medial wall of the lateral femoral condyle.

In the composition of the ACL, there are two bundles that are called the anteromedial and the posterolateral.

It attaches to the front of the tibia, which allows the ligament to resist the tibia from moving in front of the femur, keeping the knee stable.

Athletes injure the ACL very frequently and when they do surgery it is usually needed to repair the damage.Surgery

The surgery involves a reconstruction and repairing of the ACL by using a graft to replace the ligament. Usually an autograft is used, which is taken from a part of the person’s own body, like a tendon of the kneecap or a hamstring tendon.

The surgery will only be used in a serious vase such as an avulsion fracture which is when the ligament and a small piece of the bone separates from the rest of the bone.

The ACL and the bone fragment are reattached to the bone during the surgery.

The surgery is performed by making small incisions into the knee and then inserting instruments for performing the surgery into these holes in the skin, which is called an arthroscopic surgery. There is also a possibility that an open surgery will be performed on the knee if the damage is greater. In this case, the incision is much larger and will probably require a longer period of recover.

Arthroscopic surgery is usually the preferred route by surgeons because it is easier to see what is going on in the knee structure includes smaller incisions, can be performed at the same time as a diagnostic arthroscopy is performed, and will generally have fewer risks involved especially as far as infections are concerned.

It is always performed under a general anesthetic. There is more than one incision, because different things need to be inserted into the knee. In one incision, the arthroscope is inserted, which has a camera at the end of it that transmits pictures from inside the knee to the doctors performing the surgery, which they view on a screen in the operating room.

Surgical drills are also inserted in some of the other incisions that will make small holes in the upper and lower leg bones, at the point at which they come together in the knee joint.

Once the surgery is completed and the healing process begins and the patient will probably need a longer period of physical rehabilitation to get the ACL back to normal. It all depends on how serious the injury was but in most cases the recovery will take in between four and six months.