Скачать или смотреть How To Spot Warning Signs, Prevent ACL Injuries

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) March 2013 -- It's estimated that someone suffers an ACL injury every four and a half minutes in this country, and whether you are a weekend warrior or a professional athlete, serious knee injuries are a growing concern.

"These are very major, very expensive injuries," said Dr. Timothy Hewett, director of research at The Ohio State University Sports Medicine. "Even a high school athlete tearing an ACL costs your insurance company about the cost of a car."

The good news is, Hewett and his team at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center have developed some simple screening techniques to better determine who is at risk for ACL injuries, before the damage is done.

"What we've demonstrated in the laboratory is that we can predict with greater than 80% accurate who is at high risk for relative injury," he said.

Hewett and his team are so good at spotting problems in fact, that the NBA has asked them to help identify which athletes are at the highest risk for ACL injuries, and to come up with a program to try and prevent them.

"ACL rupture is the number one reason for loss of time of play in both the NBA and the NFL," said Hewett, "so the lead team physician for the NBA called me up and said we need to do something about this."