Confinement minimally supervised incremental home exercises program in anterior cruciate ligament injuries

Abstract

Objective: to report the results of this lockdown-compliant, minimally supervised incremental home exercise program (PEDIMS, by its acronym in Spanish) in the preoperative stage of ACL injuries emphasizing the eccentric activation of the ACL agonist hamstrings.

Materials and methods: six men with ACL injuries were studied in the preoperative ACL reconstruction stage. Hamstring strength measurements were recorded before and after performing the PEDIMS. We used the original DINABANG instrument to obtain these measurements. This program was carried out for four weeks, with only five face-to-face sessions and the rest at home by the patients.

Results: comparing the healthy contralateral knee, strength of 2.17 N/kg, with the injured one pre-training and post-training, we obtained an increase in the strength of the hamstrings with ACL injury, of 1.63 N/kg to 1.92 N/kg, respectively. Starting from a subjective satisfaction of 67% according to the Lysholm score, the training achieves 87% satisfaction, these results are statistically significant.

Conclusions: PEDIMS is a clinical program for knee flexor muscle strengthening for its application in the pre-operative stage of the ACL that reduces the number of face-to-face sessions, which gives the method a clear validity in times of pandemic or budget reduction.