Bison137
Professor
Posts: 16147
Reg: 01-23-06
|
01-21-20 01:41 PM - Post#297161
In response to Old Bison
Even with the level of today’s medical gold standard it’s never an injury you want to have to rebound from. Not sure anybody really recovers to 100%. Bernard King was the first to “recover†from an ACL tear after the first level of medical advancement. Before that it was a death sentence. Imagine Bernard with two “good†knees late in his career.
When King tore his, there was no transplant surgery available, so normally it WAS a death sentence as far as playing professionally. He did an incredible rehab job, but even then it took him two years to come back. And I don't think he was quite as good as he was in 1984-85 prior to the injury.
Definitely not an injury you want to come back from - and my kids have collectively gone through three of them. Having said that, I think stats show that many athletes are as good after the injury as before, even though it may take some time. The surgery and rehab process has improved dramatically over the years, and it continues to get better. In fact there is a procedure being used on some the last couple of years where the ACL can actually heal itself - which normally it cannot do. Over time, that procedure may become the gold standard.
Getting back to 100% is a mental process as well as physical, where the athlete has to fully trust the knee and not think about it when making an aggressive cut or a jump stop or when planting the leg to jump. It's not easy for some because they are doing the exact same thing that tore the ACL in the first place - and it's very easy to ease up either consciously or subconsciously.
|