Psychological impairments after ACL injury – Do we know what we are addressing? Experiences from sports physical therapists

Abstract

Psychological impairments can follow an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury and can impact the rehabilitation process. Our aim was to investigate experiences of sports physical therapists (PTs) in addressing psychological impairments in patients after ACL injury. We conducted four focus group interviews with fourteen sports PTs. The PTs’ experiences of working with psychological impairments after ACL injury were summarized in four main categories: (1) “Calling for a guiding light”, where PTs stated that the most common method of acquiring knowledge on addressing psychological impairments was through discussions with colleagues, and, at the same time, PTs expressed an insufficient knowledge of how to address psychological impairments; (2) “Meeting the burden of psychological impairments” where PTs stated that psychological impairments are greater than physical; (3) “Trying to balance physical and psychological aspects” where patient education and assessments were reported to be important in order to understand psychological impairments during rehabilitation; and (4) “Goal setting: a helpful challenge” where sports PTs expressed a need for specific knowledge of the rehabilitation of psychological impairments following ACL injury. To help provide the current best practice, we encourage researchers to develop psychologically centered interventions for rehabilitation after an ACL injury, and PTs to stay up‐to‐date with the literature published on the subject, including to implement eventual interventions.

Effectiveness of Implementing Sleep Hygiene Guidelines on Daily Living Activities for Anterior Knee Cruciate Ligaments Reconstruction Patients

“…Concerning the acquisition of knowledge, the result of the current study revealed that more than half of the studied patients hadn't good level of knowledge regarding anterior cruciate ligament surgeries and sleep hygiene guidelines among the studied groups, before program implementation. This results were agree with Hussein et al,(2020) (36) , Piussi et al,(2021) (37) , reported that the majority of the studied sample had a good knowledge level. Additionally, the result of the current study revealed that more than half of the studied patients had satisfactory level of knowledge regarding anterior cruciate ligament surgeries and sleep hygiene guidelines among the study groups, after program implementation.…”

Disrupted knee – disrupted me: a strenuous process of regaining balance in the aftermath of an anterior cruciate ligament injury

“…Even though a recent consensus statement article concludes that psychological factors play an important role in return to sport, it remains unclear if psychological scales can be used to capture this and improve the rehabilitation process [ 34 ]. Thereto, a study by Piussi et al 2021 suggested that physiotherapists express insufficient knowledge of how to address psychological impairments during rehabilitation [ 35 ]. Our result can provide guidance of important aspects for screening, e.g.…”

Warum wir einen psychologisch informierten Ansatz in der Rehabilitation von VKB-Verletzungen brauchen!

“…Gerade Letzteres wird von vielen Patient*innen als Schlüssel für eine erfolgreiche Rehabilitation angesehen und muss nicht zwangsläufig durch die Rückkehr in den Sport definiert sein. In manchen Fällen kommt es zu einer Neubewertung der eigenen Situation und Identität, und andere Lebensziele werden in den Mittelpunkt gestellt 36 , 57 , 60 , 77 .…”