ORTHOPAEDISTS RESEARCH FEMALE KNEE PROBLEMS

ACL injuries are more common in women than men due to anatomical differences which include:

• Women have a smaller ACL, a wider pelvis and an increased incidence of inward knee pointing.
• Women have less strength in the muscles as compared to men. In addition, women use their quadriceps muscles more than men for stability and take more time to develop muscular force resulting in greater stress on the ACL.
• Women have looser knees and a greater range of motion as compared to men.

These factors make women more vulnerable to ACL injury by weakening the ligament.

A training and rehabilitation program can help reduce the risk of ACL injury. The program focuses on:

• Controlling inward knee movement.
• Emphasizing the use of the hamstring muscles for knee stability.
• Controlling the movement of the hip and trunk and training the hip muscles to stabilize the knee.
• Controlling knee extension.
• Increasing muscle endurance.