Orthopedic surgeons are raising the alarm about their youngest patients. They say the number of young athletes tearing their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee is in the hundreds per year. “I don’t want to be over dramatic, but I do use the word epidemic,” said McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) orthopedic surgeon and ACL researcher, Dr. Paul Martineau. According to the Quebec Orthopedic Association, 388 people under 18 had ACL surgery last year alone. “It has more than doubled the number in the last 20 years in Quebec, 38 per cent increase of ACL reconstruction overall. So honestly, it’s really a problem,” said Dr. Marie-Lyne Nault. As an orthopedic surgeon at Saint-Justine Hospital, Nault said she’s operated on athletes as young as seven years old. The usually non-contact injury is often caused by sudden stops, jumping, or quick changes in direction. It’s for this reason that sports like basketball, skiing and soccer are considered high-risk. The recent popularity of flag football at the school level is especially concerning to doctors. “One of the ones that’s probably the most risky for your ACL in terms of the way it’s played is flag football,” said Martineau. He said this injury used to be “an extreme rarity,” but now, when he treats a young athlete, “she often tells me, yeah, you’ve operated on three of my friends already.” The injury is more common in females, but one of the main causes has to do with “super specializing.” Martineau says having kids only play one sport, “training them like they’re little adults when they’re not little adults yet,” can lead to injury. There are certain ways athletes move that can predispose them to an ACL tear. This is why he created Hurtblocker, a smartphone app to predict whether users are at risk of ACL injury. “You can download for free and anyone can jump in front of it and says, oh, you’re fine, continue,” but he says the app might also tell someone else that they are “right on the razor’s edge of what an ACL can tolerate.” Nault says it’s a long road back to recovery after a surgery that children might have to wait months to even receive. She says they can be out of sport for at least a year, which can be a “big catastrophe” and is very hard to tell a family. “Kids cry, parents cry, they faint,” she says. Both doctors say the good news is that this injury can be prevented with strength and conditioning exercises. They recommend working on hamstring and glute strength, along with landing techniques. If done properly, they can prevent up to 70 per cent of injuries. Nault says once or twice a week is a good start in order to maintain a long, healthy life playing sports.
