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THURSDAY, March 6 (HealthDay News) -- Baby Boomers are staying active on the basketball court and soccer field, and now new research suggests their injured knees can tolerate surgery just as easily as their younger counterparts.
A new, but small, study found that men and women in their 50s and 60s did well after undergoing reconstruction of injured tissues in their knees known as anterior cruciate ligaments.
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A couple decades ago, surgeons wouldn't have bothered to fix these injuries in people over 50, or even 40. Now, "you're never too old to have your ACL reconstructed," said Dr. Diane Dahm, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
She presented the research Wednesday at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons' annual meeting, in San Francisco.
The ACL is a kind of anchor that holds the knee together and can become injured when someone is playing sports and tries to turn and pivot, said Dr. Robert Gotlin, director of orthopedic and sports rehabilitation at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. Athletes who play sports like football, lacrosse, basketball and soccer are especially prone to the injury, he noted.
Tearing and extreme stretching hurt the ACL. According to Dahm, an injury could come while landing after a rebound on the basketball court. Injuries are also possible off the field, perhaps while changing direction quickly while getting out of a car. Still, she said, most of the injuries are related to sports.
In decades past, surgeons were reluctant to perform procedures on people who had injuries after the age of 40, because it was assumed that "your athletic life is done," Gotlin said. "You don't fix the ACL, because you don't really need it."
Times, and attitudes, have changed.
"Boomers are active, and they're tearing [their ACLs] for the right reasons, because they're working out," he noted. "They're getting hurt, because they're doing more."
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