Diagnosis of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury

전방십자인대 손상의 진단

Recently, the incidence of anterior cruciate ligament injury is rapidly increasing because many young Korean are actively participating in sports activities including basketball, skiing and soccer. Sometimes acute ACL injuries arc misdiagnosed as sprain because of pain and muscle spasm. An accurate physical examination and careful history taking are very important to diagnose the ACL injuries. Therefore author described the skill of history taking and the technique of physical examination to diagnose ACL injuries. The most sensitive test is the Lachman's test, which is performed with the knee in 200 of flexion, the femur stabilized with full flexed examiner's knee placed behind patient's distal thigh and one hand of examiner, and the proximal tibia grasped with the other. The pivot shift test is a passive motion test that attempts to subluxate the tibia anteriorly, then have it reduce rapidly. The pivot shift test is very sensitive test to diagnose the chronic ACL injuries.