Professional Athletes and ACL Repair Surgery Washington DC

Becoming an elite athlete is a serious undertaking that requires remarkable commitment on the part of the individual.  Those who have a natural ability combined with the work ethic to be better than yesterday's best self every day can reach incredible career heights.  And, in just one tragic second, years of dedication and practice can be wiped away by an unavoidable injury.  Injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) are very common at all levels of athletic competition.  The sports that are most likely to cause these injuries include soccer, football and basketball.  All of these sports require landing, cutting, jumping and pivoting that can quickly go wrong and result in this type of knee injury.  Baseball also has its share of ACL injuries, but because the action in this game is a little bit slower, the rate of ACL tears is not quite as high.

After ACL Repair Surgery

ACL Repair Surgery Washington DC is often done by replacing the injured ligament with a donated tendon.  While this is a very good surgery for returning the average individual to their favorite activities, it is not always successful when it comes to allowing really elite athletes to compete at the same level they did before the accident.  Clearly, the emotional and financial consequences can be enormous.  What is, perhaps, even more upsetting is the fact that at the professional level, many sports are considered industries and the players are little more than a piece of the product.

Most orthopedic surgeons will say that the minimal amount of recovery time needed subsequent to ACL Repair Surgery DC (http://www.medstarwashington.org/) is six months.  It is unfortunate that people who are profiting from the industry of professional sports often want to return players to the game long before they should really be medically cleared for participation.  The result is that athletes become stressed out, not only about how they will perform post-injury, but about unrealistic timelines for healing and consequences to their hard-won careers if they aren't able to comply with what franchise owners are pushing their coaches to demand from them.  Many elite players have returned to their sports as only average because of dynamics like these.