A Northern Tasmanian researcher's groundbreaking approach to ACL rehab

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the two cruciate ligaments that aids in stabilising the knee joint, and is the most commonly injured ligament in the knee.

Despite being one of the most performed and successful sports injury surgery interventions, the ACL reconstruction surgery is still plagued by limitations and controversy.

Project lead and orthopaedics surgeon Laurent Willemot said a new, innovative method of rehabilitation was gaining popularity, but needed to be researched more.

"Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) is a technique used more and more often in athletes and bodybuilders interestingly, where a tourniquet is applied to the limb that's being exercised and then the athlete will exercise as before," Dr Willemot said.

"The idea is that you somehow increase strength and muscle growth by cutting off the blood supply falling back to the body.

"Basically you're pooling and congesting blood into the limb, and that somehow seems to trigger more muscle regrowth."

The technique has its origins in Japan using elastic bands, but now researchers can measure how much pressure is applied using pneumatic systems.

He said in ACL reconstructions, the they tended to use "spare parts" from around the body.

"We take a tendon from somewhere else and we reconstruct the ligament in the knee that's been torn; but they take a little while to heal," Dr Willemot said.

"Before the tendon heals into bone, the athlete needs to rest and can't really do any vigorous exercise, and so this is where BFR comes in.

"Because theoretically, that would allow us to stimulate the muscles to grow and to and to strengthen again after the operation without really stressing our repair and causing it to fail."

He said BFR was gaining in popularity, but as an orthopaedic surgeon, wanted to know if it was actually beneficial to the patient.

"But if it proves to result in better outcomes for the athlete, as in quicker return to sports, then ideally we'd like to get this to be part of the standard protocol and rehab for ACL reconstruction," Dr Willemot said.

The research is supported by the Clifford Craig Foundation's recent round of funding for eight novel research projects.