WEAR the F#@king Knee Brace!

[jabor]

(05-19-2022, 12:18 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Yes, no consensus. As in no consensus bracing prevents ACL tears.  If they prevented ACL tears, then there would be a consensus.

To understand why there isn't a consensus you need to understand the mechanism of injury that causes an ACL tear. Then you can understand how the brace can stabilize the knee. And also, how the brace can't.

Mechanism of ACL Tear : Wheeless' Textbook of Orthopaedics (wheelessonline.com)


The ACL prevents the tibia from sliding forward past the femur (translation) and stabilizes rotation. When an athlete changes direction suddenly they decelerate and plant their outside foot this creates shear forces in that tibial translation plane.  They are also going to rotate their upper body towards the new direction which causes shear forces in that rotational plane. The femur and tibia are going in two opposite directions in two different planes. Functional ACL bracing might help stabilize translation if it doesn't slip at all. But they do very little to stabilize rotation. If you can't prevent over rotation, you can't prevent an ACL tear. And 0-30 degrees of knee extension is normal range of motion.

Test it yourself. Go get yourself a cheap hinged knee brace and put it on correctly. Bend your knee slightly. Without putting weight on that leg try rotating your foot in and out. If you can rotate your foot, you can tear your ACL. Or just stand on the one leg which is braced. Turn you upper body left and right. If you can rotate your body that brace can't prevent a twisting injury to the knee.

When was using the word consensus, I meant that there are Drs who would favor wearing a brace and some that wouldn't. Is that not true?

Just a point of clarification. If you look at my OP, you will see I mentioned protecting the knee from injury... not just the ACL. All conversation seems to be ACL-related.

I never said knee braces prevent injury. Only that we have limited qualitative studies proving or disproving what benefit they may have. And without that information, I'd lean towards wearing one because there seems to be info at least leaning in the direction of protecting against some types of knee injuries. I've seen research that says padding may actually be a better option for impact injuries than a brace or wearing nothing. It will be interesting to see if tech ... or new strength/training regimens can come up with alternative ways to protect knees.

Bottom line, if a brace does protect against some injuries (even if not an ACL injury), isn't it worth wearing one?