Prevention: Posterior Cruciate Ligament

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Knee Injury

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Knee injuries are very common among athletes as well as regular active people and can always be prevented. Ligament tears account for more than forty percent of knee injuries and the posterior cruciate ligament is considered one of the less common injuries [1]. Although it is less common, there are still important measures that can be taken in order to prevent this type of knee injury. Maintaining proper exercise and sport technique is crucial for injury prevention, which include not exceeding the body or not going over the proper range of motion of the knee, properly warming up and cooling down[2]

Quadriceps and Hamstring Ratio

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Another important aspect of maintaining an injury free knee is having strong quadriceps and hamstring muscles because they help stabilize the knee. A low hamstring to quadriceps ratio is associated with knee injury and should be about eighty percent [3]. Some exercises to strengthen the quadriceps and hamstring muscles include leg curls, leg lifts, prone knee flexion with resistance band and knee extensions. Some stretches to help prevent injury to the posterior cruciate ligament include stretching of the hamstring muscles by extending the legs, toes pointing up, leaning forward until the stretch is felt and holding for a few seconds.

 
Exercises that strengthen the knee joints and the hamstrings include prone knee flexion. Where the knee flexes all the way back to the rear end, hold for about 10 seconds, then slowly lower to original position and repeat.

Exercises and Stretches

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In addition, balancing exercises have also been adopted because it has been proven that people with poor balance have more knee injuries than those with good balance. Wobble boards and Bosu balls are very common pieces of equipment used to balance and help prevent knee injuries as long as they are being used with trained personnel[4]. Another possible preventive measure is wearing knee straps to help stabilize the knee and protect it from injury, especially during demanding sports such as football[5].

  1. ^ Rigby, J. M., & Porter, K. M. (2010). Posterior cruciate ligament injuries. Trauma, 12(3), 175-181
  2. ^ Sancheti, P., Razi, M., Ramanathan, E., & Yung, P. (2010). Injuries around the knee – Symposium. British Journal Of Sports Medicine
  3. ^ Daneshjoo, A., Mokhtar, A., Rahnama, N., & Yusof, A. (2012). The Effects of Injury Preventive Warm-Up Programs on Knee Strength Ratio in Young Male Professional Soccer Players. Plos ONE, 7(12), 1-7.
  4. ^ Hrysomallis, C. (2007). Relationship Between Balance Ability, Training and Sports Injury Risk. Sports Medicine, 37(6), 547-557
  5. ^ Altonen, S., Karjalainen, H., Heinonen, A., Parkhari, J., & Kujala, U. M. (2007). Prevention of Sports Injuries. Archives Of Internal Medicine, 167(15), 1585-1592.