Anterior cruciate ligament injuries are quite common particularly with high intensity sports. After rupturing their ligament, majority of patients undergo reconstructive surgery to restore knee stability. Considerable number of surgeries fail, and in these cases performance of another surgery is reasonable, but sadly results of revision anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction are generally less favourable compared to those of primary surgery. The main purpose of this master’s thesis was to thoroughly present revision anterior cruciate ligament surgery issues in terms of primary reconstruction failure factors and indications for revision procedure; to describe pre- and intraoperative course of revision reconstruction and postoperative results; and to elaborate guidelines or basic exercise program for postoperative period without neglecting the criteria for a safe return to strenuous and sporting activities. Therefore, our main goal was to provide sport and healthcare employees with logically structured theoretical insight into revision anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction topic, thus giving them a useful tool for work instances when they encounter an individual who underwent two reconstructive surgeries to one of the main knee joint stabilizers.
Descriptive method was employed with the help of scientific writings regarding knee injuries, and more specifically anterior cruciate ligament ruptures and revision reconstruction surgery, only taking into account sources which enabled us full text access.
Primary findings of this thesis were that despite high performance difficulty of revision anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, with appropriate recognition of index surgery failure causes, selection of highly experienced surgeon well-versed in every surgical technique, and adequate postoperative activity planning, satisfactory results and return to sporting activities can be achieved, but only by emphasising the individualization of patient treatment taking sporting/occupational and surgical history into consideration.
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