Management of Sports Knee Injuries

Course description

We present this 3-days knee rehabilitation course, coinceived and developed by the presenters, all knee specialized physical therapist and orthopaedic surgeons, clinicians and researchers, that cooperate in their everyday clinical practice and/or research. The concept underpinning the structure of this course that aims to be solidly based on the best available evidence (published and not published yet) and the clinical expertise accumulated by the instructors, constantly updated in each edition, is to provide clinicians with a comprehensive theoretical and heavily practical learning pathway around the rehabilitation following knee injuries.

The participants will be driven in practice through a journey from the moment of the injury to discharge/Return To Sport after the most frequent knee injuries that a wide range of individuals, from regular people to weekend warriors, from semi-pro to professional/elite athletes, can incur into - such as:

• anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears - either non-surgical or post-operative, differenciating by grafts
• ACL-R with associated lesions (MCL, LCL, meniscus, cartilage, postero-lateral corner injuries, cartilage lesions)
• isolated meniscus tears rehabilitation - either non-surgical or following meniscectomy/repair
• isolated medial & lateral collateral ligaments (MCL & LCL) injuries
• isolated posterior cruciate ligament tears

This is ideally represented by the following schematic learning pathway:

The instructors are firm supporters of the benefit of a strict cooperation between multiple health professionals to provide the best possible care to patients and injured athletes. Therefore, registering to this course, participants will learn how to factually put in place a multidisciplinary approach, evaluating patients and their injuries from the physical therapist and surgeon perspectives, including clinical assessment, diagnostic imaging, functional evaluation up to a truly shared intervention decision-making that involves the orthopaedic surgeon and the physical therapist’s judgement, eventually including the patient and related stakeholders; from the family to, in case of athletes, the team manager, the coach, the agent, the team medical doctor, etc.

The attendees will be guided through what should ideally happen from the first moments following knee injuries, their evaluation with the relative priorities, the formulation of a proper diagnosis, the determination reliable prognosis, and the planning of the most appropriate intervention based on the best available evidence, the clinicians shared expertise at the service of the patient and the injured subject preference and expectations. The reasons why structuring up a tight cooperation between surgeons and physical therapists that leads the therapists to actually attend in the operative room and how this can be a game-changer will be presented as well.

The course will cover the entire rehabilitation process, either post-operatively or following a non-surgical intervention. The theoretical and mostly practical focus will be on the elements that the physical therapist should put emphasis on depending on the type of knee injury (and possibly associated injuries), on how and when the fundamental physical qualities along the rehabilitation process have to be ‘chased’ with the appropriated progressions in order to achieve a complete recovery.

Overcoming muscle inhibition, regain range of motion, managing effusion, normalising walking gait, improving movement skills, applying/monitoring/managing load, regaining the different qualities of strength, returning to running and then to restricted training practice, taking into consideration the psychological aspects that might limit recovery, gradually exposing patients to their preferred physical activities/sports specific gestures, progressively testing, etc. - depending on the knee injury the time scale will be different but all patients/injured athletes will need to be exposed to the rehabilitation of all these qualities and abilities at some point to achieve a successful outcome, and this is the main focus of this course instructors. The everyday clinical reasoning put into practice in knee rehabilitation.

This includes testing patients/injured athletes along their rehabilitative journey, learning how to rate their current status to be actually able to decide whether they can safely proceed to the next phase (Return To Run, Return To Train on the Field, Return To Sport) or need to further improve under certain parameters and the scientific reason underpinning this approach.

Eventually, the course will analyze the RTS decision-making with dedicated practical focus.

Participants will be asked to practice, try, and experience what their patients will be requested to do during their rehabilitation process in order to feel it. They will be provided notions of biomechanics, introduced to different rehabilitative approaches/techniques and science-based concepts that will drive them through the process following different knee injuries.

Learning objectives

• Develop a healthy and productive surgeon-physical therapist professional relationship for the eventual patients’ benefit and the personal/professional growth
• Understand, critically appraise and put into context the scientific literature on knee injuries
• Realize that all knee patients/injured athletes will need to be exposed to the rehabilitation of the same physical & psychological qualities at some point and get in control of when the time comes to target the different abilities depending by their specific injury and their post-injury evolution
• Learn how to effectively implement a high-quality rehabilitation program following ACL isolated injuries (approached with an ACL-R or non-surgically), ACL-R with associated lesions, isolated meniscus tears or repairs, and MCL/LCL injuries
• Enhance the clinicians skills of connecting the piece of the puzzle merging biomechanics, kinesiology, exercise physiology and sports-specific concepts to orthopaedic decision-making following knee injuries, rehabilitation and discharge/RTS
• Upskill the clinicians testing abilities to progress through the knee rehabilitation phases until RTS

Registration fee

REGISTRATION for this 3-days course:

• Registration fee groups 4+ pp* €463,00 + VAT 22%
• Registration fee groups 8+ pp* €436,00 + VAT 22%
• Registration fee (early booking)* €479,00 + VAT 22% - until February 26th, 2021
• Registration fee €545,00 + VAT 22% - starting from February 27th, 2021
• -10% for members of our partners

*The aforementioned promo cannot be combined with the other ongoing discounts such as:
"10% discount fee for members of PARTNERS’ organizations”