Torn Ligament In Sports

1991 Words8 Pages

Athletes Closest Thing to Death
Former MVP in the NBA, Derrick Rose, jumps his into the air to contest a shot. He comes down hard and collapses on the gym court as the crowd watches the NBA’s finest point guard suffering in agony they are all quiet waiting for him to hop up and continue to play. Unfortunately that 's not the case, and never is with a torn ligament. He was escorted off the court and sent to the hospital where his career fell off a cliff and he has never been even close to as good as he was before his injury. Ligament tears in the knee are one of the worst sports injuries to obtain when as an athlete because they can never go back to how the ligament was to begin with. These injuries are common and happen to everyone, even the …show more content…

There are two different options you have after a torn ligament in the knee has occurred, you can undergo surgery or let the ligament heal naturally. Some reasons that you may go the natural route are the following: Partial tears in the ligament, young children with open growth plates, stability is not an issue and not involved in any activities that rely on your ACL daily (Cluett 26). It may be the best option to stay away from surgery if you are not involved in heavy physical activities and take care and rest your leg on its own. How this is done is with rest, ice, compressing and elevation, which is commonly referred to as RICE (Zelman 2). You can rest byy using crutches and laying down to take the weight off the injured leg, and ice should be applied every two hours for twenty minutes at a time while awake. Compress your knee with an elastic bandage and elevate on while laying down, the injured knee should be above the heart. Anti-inflammatory medication is also effective when trying to reduce pain. If you are not having instability in your knee then most of the average people let it heal on it 's own because they wouldn 't have to take to risk of surgery (Cluett 25). Surgery is a risk, many athletes are concerned about the small risk of transmission of infections. Diseases like AIDS can be transferred because of the true graft operation where an ACL is taken from a dead human and used as the ligament of someone else. In the book, Stark said, “Nonsurgical treatments …show more content…

While some believe that nonsurgical treatment is the best option, It is the best option to undergo surgery to repair the ligament to be as close as it was before the tear. Ultimately, surgery is the best option for nearly everyone because it allows a cleaner and healthier recovery. Being an athlete this would be the best choice because it allows the ligament to heal faster and better. The stability is gained back to how it was before the injury by adding a ligament from another place in the body or from someone else 's. Without surgery, your knee will likely acquire arthritis and have stability issues in the knee when trying to pivot, cut or twist. That will most likely happen because the ligament won 't have the care to repair itself back together