Evaluation of the Relative Frequency of Preinjury Activity Recovery in Anterior Cruciate Ligament Replacement Patients: A Cohort Study

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury has an incidence of 0.05-0.08 per thousand. An inappropriate treatment plan could lead to articular cartilage damage and early knee osteoarthritis. Some surgical reconstruction techniques use different graft types; all of them try to restore the patient's preinjury activity levels. The current study aims to evaluate the efficacy of ACL reconstruction (ACLR) using an autologous hamstring tendon.

This is a retrospective one-center cohort study performed on consecutive patients with an ACL injury who underwent ACLR using semitendinosus and gracilis autograft. The postsurgical activity and fear were measured using Marx scale and Tampa scale of kinesophobia, respectively, during a follow-up of 18 months.

From a total of 76 patients included in our study, 40.8% were female. The mean age of the participants was 26.25-year-old. Five patients from those with kinesophobia (12.5%) and 34 patients from those with no-kinesophobia (94%) returned to the preinjury activity level (P value < 0.001). Marx scale six months after the surgery was significantly lower than the score before the surgery, but as expected, it improved during the 18-month follow-up.

The current study showed that kinesophobia reduces the rate of return to preinjury levels. Maybe, overcoming this fear will help these patients to reach better results. However, we suggest implementing further trials in larger sample sizes before reaching a solid conclusion.