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Unexpected outcome (positive or negative) including adverse drug reactions
CASE REPORT
Fast-tracked Rehabilitation and Return to Sport of an Elite Rugby Player with a Complicated Posterolateral Corner Injury and Associated Peroneal Paralysis
  1. L.D.A. Paget1,2,
  2. P.P.F.M. Kuijer3,
  3. M. Maas2,4,
  4. G.M.M.J. Kerkhoffs1,2
  1. 1Department of Orthopaedics, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  2. 2Academic Center for Evidence-Based Sports Medicine (ACES), Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  3. 3Coronel Institute of Occupational Health, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  4. 4Department of Radiology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to L.D.A. Paget, Lda.paget{at}gmail.com

Summary

Acute posterolateral corner injuries of the knee with associated hamstring avulsions and peroneal paralysis are rare in rugby. Regain of motor function following a complete paralysis is documented to be 38%. To our knowledge, only one case describes return to preinjury level of competitive sport taking up to 27 months. A 24-year-old international level rugby player, a medical student, sustained an acute posterolateral knee injury with associated anterior cruciate ligament tear, bicep femoris and semimembranosus avulsions as well as a complete peroneal paralysis. The patient returned to full-time medical rotation work weeks at 5 months. At 10 months, the patient was considered to have returned to preinjury level of activity having managed a 5 km run, participated regularly in non-contact rugby and performed exercises at 140% of his preinjury maximum. This case report describes the successful outcome of a high-frequency high-intensity rehabilitation.

  • physiotherapy (rehabilitation)
  • sports and exercise medicine
  • neurological injury
  • orthopaedics

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2017-219666

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors The corresponding author, LDAP, is responsible for the acquisition of data and the drafting of the article. PK contributed to the drafting of the article. LDAP, PK, MM and GK all agreed on conception and design and contributed equally to analysis and interpretation of data and its critical revision for important intellectual content. GK is guarantor of the article. Final approval of the version for publication was agreed upon by all authors and are accountable for the article regarding its accuracy and integrity.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.