ACL Tears Worth Fixing in Seniors

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As a result, older patients are going under the knife so they can stay active. Gotlin said he's performed surgeries on patients in their 80s who returned to the ski slopes, although rehabilitation can take months.

In the new study, researchers looked at the records of 34 patients who underwent ACL reconstruction surgery between 1990 and 2002 at the Mayo Clinic. All were between the ages of 50 and 66.

The surgery reconstructs the ACL with other tissue, sometimes from the patient's own body.

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Eighty-three percent of the patients were considered to have returned to a normal or near-normal state after the surgery, and 83 percent returned to playing sports. However, five of the 34 patients required more knee surgery.

"Some people have felt that it's possible that reconstructing the ACL in these older patients might lead to an increased risk of complications like stiffness in the knee, but our complication rate was very low," Dahm said.

The message, she said, is that the surgery works: "They were able to return to a fairly high level of activity."

More information

Learn more about ACL injuries from the National Institutes of Health.

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