Female athletes today may play as hard as their male counterparts, but they score more in one unfortunate way: injuries to a major stabilizing ligament in the knee.
Female basketball players suffer injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) twice as often as males in the sport. And in soccer, the injury disparity is even greater; females are four times more likely than males to experience an ACL injury. Volleyball players also are at increased risk.
“It happens in young women,” explains Kurt P. Spindler, M.D., professor and vice chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation. “It has nothing to do with wear-and-tear and nothing to do with aging.”
Females 15 to 25 are at the highest risk; the majority of ACL injuries happen in this group. While researchers have identified ways to help these active young females guard against this ligament injury, the underlying explanation of why women are so much more susceptible is still unclear. Some researchers suggest the injury disparity may be due to differences in conditioning, muscle strength and control, while others point to a possible influence related to gender, including lower-body alignment and the effect of estrogen on the ligaments. continued>> |
