Home Vs. Physiotherapy Supervised Rehabilitation After ACL Reconstruction

University of Calgary

Status: Completed

Conditions: ACL Reconstruction

Treatments: Procedure: Home-based rehabilitation program; Procedure: Physiotherapy-supervised rehabilitation program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Industry

Identifiers

NCT00564837

10339

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study was designed to determine whether or not there were any differences in knee range of motion, both statically and during gait, sagittal plane knee laxity, and quadriceps and hamstrings strength in patients three months post-ACL reconstruction with a bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft based on their performance of a primarily home based rehabilitation program or a standard physiotherapy-supervised program.

Enrollment: 145 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 16+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. 16 years of age or older
2. Surgery at least 6 weeks after injury to allow for a return of full range of motion, minimize swelling, and offset strength deficits due to pain/swelling14,28
3. ACL reconstruction with a bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft

Exclusion criteria

1. Previous or concomitant reconstruction of any knee ligament to either knee
2. Ongoing knee abnormality unrelated to the ACL injury (eg, evidence of changes on radiographs consistent with osteoarthritis)
3. Professional athletes or workers' compensation patients
4. Complications during surgery (eg, inadequate graft fixation requiring protocol modification)
5. Patients without access to local physical therapy services

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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145 participants in 2 patient groups

Home-based

Experimental group

Description:

Home-based post-operative rehabilitation program with 4 scheduled physiotherapy sessions over the first 3 post-op months

Treatment:

Procedure: Home-based rehabilitation program

Physiotherapy supervised

Active Comparator group

Description:

Physiotherapy-supervised rehabilitation program including 17 scheduled physiotherapy sessions in the first 3 post-op months

Treatment:

Procedure: Physiotherapy-supervised rehabilitation program