Road to Recovery: Repairing a Torn ACL
It’s the diagnosis no athlete wants to hear, a torn ACL. The Anterior Cruciate Ligament is the most commonly injured ligament among athletes in the United States and when torn requires surgery to repair and stabilize the knee joint. The road to recovery can feel long and daunting but athletes can lean on the team of specialists at Avera Orthopedics & Sports Medicine to help them every step of the way.
It was the second game of the University of Sioux Falls Women’s Basketball season and the energy was pulsing on and off the Stewart Center court.
“I was really excited to play because last year I redshirted and right off the bat I went in, went up for a rebound and landed wrong.” Said Cassidy Siemonsma, a redshirt Freshman basketball player for USF.
Luckily for Cassidy, that was also the first game that Dr. Dustin Volkmer, an orthopedic surgeon with Avera Orthopedics happened to also be at.
“Perfect timing. Yeah!” laughed Siemonsma.
“We were watching the game and saw her go down. I worked with Marla, the athletic trainer, to come check her out and see what was going on. So unfortunately, my first experience with USF basketball was watching an ACL tear.” Said Dr. Volkmer
Right away, Dr. Volkmer expedited the care for Cassidy by scheduling an MRI and scheduling an appointment to confirm his suspicions regarding her knee injury.
“At the time of surgery, it did confirm again what the MRI scans showed, where she had a complete ACL rupture and she had a bit more of a complex type temporal lateral meniscus that we treated surgically as well,” said Dr. Volkmer
When dealing with young patients and particularly athletes, orthopedic surgeons like Dr. Volkmer are becoming more aggressive with repairing the meniscus instead of trimming out loose flaps or just cleaning out the injured area.
”So in her case, it was a little more of a difficult type pattern to repair. But we were able to get stitches or sutures across it to kind of tie the meniscus back together to get that to heal.” Said Dr. Volkmer.
Cassidy had a patellar tendon graft, which is a strip of tendon from the front side of the knee and fashioned it into a new ACL that was placed in her knee using tunnels and screws for rigid fixation.
“She got a great graft, very solid fixation. We got a good repair on the meniscus. So the challenge after that is rehab time, which takes a long time to let the graft mature and heal. The body has to kind of heal on that end and it has to mature to withstand the rigors of going back to sports like basketball.” Said Dr. Volkmer.
The healing and recovery aspect of Cassidy’s journey started almost immediately after surgery. Physical therapy begins as soon as patients are cleared post-surgery to allow the therapist to work on getting muscle strength built back up. In Cassidy’s case, she’s been working alongside physical therapist Anthony Husher.
“Working with Anthony is really, really fun. He’s really good and I think he's really smart and has helped a lot.” Said Siemonsma.
“So over the next several weeks it'll be gradually progressing her through motions and doing some more walking activities, progressing to jogging, and usually in about six months or so, doing more jumping, cutting and pivoting activities.” Said Dr. Volkmer.
Cassidy says she was a little nervous to start something new because she didn't want to re-injure the joint.
“I just get nervous. But they assure me I'm doing everything on the right track and it won’t hurt more.” Said Siemonsma.
Dr. Volkmer says the goal with most ACL repairs is to get athletes back to physical activity at about 9 months.
“that’s the sweet-spot or the ideal spot for return to full sports competition. The good news is that the vast majority of these elite athletes who have this injury do get back to their same or even higher-level function.” Said Dr. Volkmer.
“I have a good team behind me. I hope to come out stronger and just be better on the court for my team.” Said Siemonsma.
