The challenge of an ACL tear is twofold. There’s the immediate surgery and yearlong rehab that’s plainly visible when an elite athlete is stricken, but research has shown that roughly half of patients suffer persisting problems in the knee years after the original injury.
“What you don’t often see is that, about a decade later, they start to develop signs of osteoarthritis in that joint. By that time, they’re not household names necessarily anymore,” Michael Zabala, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at Auburn, said, adding: “The reality is that the physician that treats your initial injury is probably not going to be the physician that treats your long-term osteoarthritis.