An Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Injury Risk Screening and Reduction Program for High School Female Athletes: A Pilot Study.
Allison Kuntz, Olivia Peters, Andrew Bello and 3 others
PMID 36518824WHAT IT FOUND
Every athlete met a high-risk ankle dorsiflexion cutoff.
Jump landing and balance step-down scores were high-risk in 10/15 and 11/15. Hip strength and hamstring-to-quadriceps measures were below cutoffs in many. This pilot screened athletes; it did not test prevention.
Key findings
01Every athlete met the high-risk cutoff for weight-bearing ankle dorsiflexion.
02Jump landing was high-risk in 10/15 athletes, and single-leg dynamic balance was high-risk in 11/15 athletes.
03Hip external rotation strength was high-risk in 13/15 athletes, and hamstring-to-quadriceps ratio was high-risk in 10/15 athletes.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Small convenience sample of 15 female athletes from local soccer and basketball teams. No long-term follow-up to see whether athletes identified as high risk actually sustained an ACL injury. The screening battery combined several measures, so the paper cannot show which single test matters. Recruitment was limited by proximity to the testing facility, transportation, and sport season demands. The cutoff values came from prior literature, not from injury outcomes in this sample. Student physical therapists performed the measures, though they were trained and supervised.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest or financial compensation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this screening program reduces ACL injuries. It measured risk-factor cutoffs in 15 athletes and had no long-term follow-up to see whether identified high-risk athletes actually sustained an injury.