Charlotte Häger Ross, professor at the Division of physical therapy at Umeå University. She makes a long-term follow-up of patients with knee injuries in the front korsbanden. NOTE – This article is machine translated from Swedish.
If you injure a knee and its anterior cruciate ligament becomes either offered surgery or physical therapy, depending on how bad it is and which doctor you meet. Charlotte Häger Ross and her research team in examining patients with old knee injuries in order to identify which method is best.
Knee injuries in front korsbanden are common and result in high costs in terms of health care and sick leave. Each year suffer approximately 7 500 Swedes and more than half get in later life osteoarthritis, failure of the knee joint.
“We do not know which treatment method that is most effective in the long term and therefore do we now have a long-term follow-up of patients, says Charlotte Häger Ross, professor in the Division of physical therapy at Umeå University and project manager for the study.
Her interest in science was sparked when she worked as a physiotherapist. Even then she realized that pain can be traced to bad coordination of muscles.
— I wanted to know more about how the brain controls our movements, which at that time in the 80 ‘s was a pretty unexplored area, especially with applications in the field of rehabilitation. I received a doctorate in neurophysiology in order to learn more about this and now I am studying both damage to the nervous system and problems of the musculoskeletal system. For example, we have recently completed a major study of young women with anterior knee pain, which is often due to poor coordination of muscles.
Self has she done without knee injuries, despite a career as a basketball player at the division 1 level.
— But the ankles have received a beating, she interjects.
Charlotte Häger Ross and her research team have been looking up more than 150 people with old knee injuries to see how their situation is 15 to 25 years later. Many injured themselves when they idrottade, most played football. Others were involved in accidents with motor scooter, car or bike. Half was operated and half were treated with physical therapy. Now detaljstuderas their knees from different perspectives; with the study of motion, x-rays, tissue samples, surveys, and stability tests. To be able to do it collaborates physiotherapists, orthopaedic surgeons, radiologists and biomedical technologies, and together, they highlight the issue in a way that has never been done before.
— It is rare with such detailed analyses that go far back in the patients ‘ lives.
The appropriation of one million crowns from No Britt and Arne Lundberg Foundation research has Charlotte Häger Ross invested in equipment for movement analysis.
— Thanks to it, we can improve our methodology. We have purchased equipment to study muscle activity and new power tiles to measure the patient’s avtramp and strikes, “said Charlotte and continues:
— It is important to see the person’s speed and coordination in such as jumps, squats and stair access and compare how the emphasis and balance changes.
Moving the lab get the person participating in the study go, jumping and balance according to the instructions and all filmed by several high-speed cameras. A seventies reflective markers are attached to the body and they can be seen on the images as small balls. With the help of technical equipment, the researchers can view just the human movement patterns, there will be a film with a moving skeleton. The person in the lab also has electrodes on his legs to record activity in the muscles.
After months of analysis work can be seen the results in figures, where you can compare movement behavior in patients and healthy people. It sounds, to say the least, requires patience, right? Charlotte laughs and says on its sounding norrbotten:
— Well you, there will be large amounts of data to process in order to answer our research questions.
Often, it is not normally after a knee injury and compensates with the healthy leg.
— Now we can also see how it ickeskadade the bone is affected, the patient often have an imbalance in their muscle strength such as the front and back of the thigh on the injured leg. By seeing the big picture, we can hopefully help to improve understanding of how the patient should come to terms with their problems.
Fear that it will hurt many avoids burdening the damaged knee, even several years after the accident. To obtain information about patients ‘ movement fear, and also how physically active they are today, some of the participants in the study to be interviewed. This gives scientists a picture of how patients ‘ lives have been affected by the damage, if they can work and work out who they are or if their everyday lives has become limited.
— We are not arriving at any conclusions yet, but we can see a trend that many developing ledsvikt, or osteoarthritis, in his injured knee, and characters are influenced by his knee injury for life, says Charlotte Häger Ross.
Operating the lab, which is located on the campus of Umeå and across from the hospital, is also used extensively by others who are not scientists.
— For example, examined children with cerebral palsy and adults with hip replacements here. We are committed to the equipment to be used in clinical trials. The methodology can be a valuable tool in the selection of treatment. It can show whether to operate or need walking AIDS, support rails or, for example, weight training.
Research Charlotte Häger Ross coordinates can hopefully lead to future patients with knee injuries get better care and more effective rehabilitation.
— Thanks to all the research and literature databases, it is now easy for doctors and physical therapists to take advantage of new developments and research analysis. This means that the results which we publish reaches out fairly quickly compared to the past and can be translated into clinical guidelines to ensure the best possible care.
Text: Monica Havström
Image: movement lab at Umeå University